[The necessary-contingent dichotomy] was interpreted in the twentieth century as follows: since facts are learned by experience, and experience does not reveal necessity, the concept "necessary facts" must be abandoned. Facts, it is now held, are one and all contingent --- and the propositions describing them are "contingent truths." As for necessary truths, they are merely the products of man's linguistic or conceptual conventions. They do not refer to facts, they are empty, "analytic," "tautological." [107]
Although not all or even most contemporary philosopher accept the necessary-contingent dichotomy, those that do advocate it believe in something close to what Peikoff describes. In other words, Peikoff has not grossly misstated this particular view, which is unusual for him. What, then, is his objection to this dichotomy? His main objection is the view, supposedly entailed by the dichotomy, that facts are contingent. Such a view, contends Peikoff,
represents a failure to grasp the Law of Identity. Since things are what they are, since everything that exists possesses a specific identity, nothing in reality can occur by chance. The nature of an entity determines what it can do and, in any given set of circumstances, dictates what it will do. The Law of Causality is entailed by the Law of Identity. Entities follow certain laws of action in consequence of their identity, and have no alternative to doing so. [108-109]
Peikoff is here guilty of doing the very thing that the analytic-synthetic dichotomy (and the necessity-contingent dichotomy that underlies it) was set up to discourage: that is, Peikoff is engaged in verbalistic speculation. He is attempting to determine matters of fact on the basis of logical and verbal constructions. The "law of causality" is not "entailed" by the "law of identity." The so-called "law of identity" is a tautology; and you can't draw specific inferences from tautologies. What if the identity of a given object is that it is governed by chance? If chance can be the identity of something, like a pair of dice, then any talk of causality being "entailed" by the phrase "A is A" is sheer nonsense.
Another objection Peikoff raises to the notion that facts are contingent is that, historically, that view "was associated with a supernaturalistic metaphysics; such facts, it was said, are products of a divine creator who could have created them differently... This view represents the metaphysics of miracles."
Here Peikoff resorts to a common Objectivist trick: he attempts to dismiss one view by relating it to another view. In other words, guilt by association. Since Hume most philosophers who believe in the contingency of facts are not motivated by a supernatural agenda. Nor are they, as Peikoff alleges, guilty of a "secularized mysticism." The secular belief in the contingency of facts arises out of the desire to stop rationalistic speculation at its very root. This may not seem obvious at first glance, but a more detailed explication, to be provided in the next post, will make it clear that it is so.
486 comments:
«Oldest ‹Older 201 – 400 of 486 Newer› Newest»“it's essentially the same as the difference between ‘i call you a fake because i don't like you’ or ‘i don't like you because you're a fake.’ the latter seems so self-evident to me that the former doesn't even cross my mind. but there it is.”
Anyone who has been following this thread will know that ungtss places me firmly in the latter category. For all his protestations, I strongly suspect that he in fact puts me in the former category, but I’ll let that pass. What I need to do now is to address ungtss’ repeated and libelous remarks about my moral and intellectual character.
First of all, I need to formally state that I have never met ungtss. He doesn’t know anything about me except the material to be found on this site. So on what basis does he maintain that I am “dishonest” and a “fake” – rather than someone who simply disagrees with some of his sillier positions?
AFAICS, the reasoning seems to be that he regards the positions I take on Ayn Rand as so demonstrably false that no explanation except dishonesty can possibly account for them.
Well, the first point I need to make is that my position on Rand’s theories of emotion, volition and evasion are, I think, shared by most of those who contribute to this site. They simply are not that controversial. Note ECE’s remark above about Rand’s theory of emotion.
On the other hand, the views that ungtss expresses about Rand’s theory of the emotions; his emphasis on “errors of knowledge” while glossing over the concept of evasion which is at the heart of Rand’s concept of evil; both of these are notions which just about any informed Objectivist on the planet would reject. And his willingness to entertain the idea that Rand’s ideas can be put down to her background would be rejected with outrage by Rand herself and by her successors. Not that ungtss would know that: he’s quick to announce that he has nothing to do with organized Objectivism. That’s good in one way, of course; but there is a downside. . .
And of course, let us recall the March thread where ungtss maintained the incredible theory that Rand regarded Dagny and Galt as “evil” because they acted against John Galt. A glance at Ayn Rand’s Journals would be enough to show how crazy this is. But the deeper issue here is that it shows the consequences of misunderstanding the centrality of the concept of evasion. Dagny and Hank may do things that they later realize are wrong - but they never evade. Ever. For Rand, the evil lies first and primarily in the evasion; the monstrous actions people do are a consequence. Every evil act, as Branden said in Basic Principles of Objectivism, is a consequence of “the thinking which someone failed to do.”
Now the point is that no one here – including myself – is calling ungtss dishonest for taking these positions. I believe that they are remarkably wrongheaded interpretations of Objectivism – but that reflects on his judgment, not his integrity.
By the way, I think I should mention that I’m pretty much in agreement with ungtss’ views on emotion. And I also have no problem with the idea that Rand’s early experiences in Russia shaped her thinking in ways that she was never prepared to admit. My disagreement lies in the suggestion that these are Objectivist positions – or ones which could in any conceivable universe be made consistent with Objectivist epistemology, ethics or psychology. If you maintain them, then sooner or later either these views have to go or your commitment to Objectivism has to go. And I say this from experience.
So there we have it. I’m not onside with people who fling a charge of dishonesty at someone whose views they don’t like. And I’m also out of sympathy with someone who responds to expressions of disagreement with a volley of abuse – then erupts in whining complaints about “social intimidation” when he gets a small taste of his own medicine. Stuff like that is cheap and wearisome. Keep this post in mind if, as seems likely, you see more of the same. I won’t be repeating it.
"As evidence for the existence of the anti- life attitudes, I'd point you to the people who shoot up elementary schools. And the ones who blow up the finish line at marathons. These actions serve no purpose except to destroy life. As do actions such as Jeffrey Dahmer's."
But that's not true.
Yes, they destroy life, but it's an obvious fallacy to assume that they serve no purpose BUT to destroy life, or that such is even their primary purpose.
A terrorist may wish to destroy the lives of their enemies, but if your enemy is "Western society", you have a lot of destroying to do. The terrorist (by definition) destroys life not to destroy it, but to inculcate fear - "you could be next, unless you obey our demands!"
Dahmer was a freak, whose destruction of life was a means to his own sick gratification. He wasn't anti life itself, he just destroyed life because it felt good to him. This is not a purpose people approve of or tolerate, but it is a purpose nonetheless. That you find a purpose repulsive does not make an act purposeless, or allow you to ascribe to it some other purpose that justifies your own arguments ("anti-life").
Would you say that the US invading Europe and dropping the A-bombs on Japan had no purpose but to destroy life? Because it sure destroyed an awful lot of life!
"He wasn't anti-life itself, just destroyed life because it felt good to him."
I can't see any difference between the two. What is anti-life if not valuing death and the destruction of life?
As far as I know, the Connecticut shooter and the Colorado shooter didn't even pretend to have political aspirations. Even if they did, the slightest act of rational thought would have shown them that killing children in elementary school or moviegoers in a theater without announcing your agenda is completely ineffective. They never identified an agenda. They certainly never accomplished one. All they did was kill people.
J, as far as I know, the Connecticut shooter and the Colorado shooter didn't even pretend to have political aspirations. Even if they did, the slightest act of rational thought would have shown them that killing children in elementary school without announcing your agenda is completely ineffective. They never identified an agenda. They certainly never accomplished one. All they did was kill people.
People do, in fact, kill for fun. To me, that is anti- life in the extreme.
Gordon, that wasn't about you. I am having an interesting conversation with jzeeo, and I would like to continue doing that.
I am sure anti-life attitudes played some role in World War II, but the obvious self protective motives are so clear, that I have no reason to believe anti-life attitudes were the dominant factors.
"Gordon, that wasn't about you. I am having an interesting conversation with jzeeo, and I would like to continue doing that."
ungtss, if I had a buck for every conversation you've barged in on, I could pay the mortgage on my house.
"Gordon, that wasn't about you. I am having an interesting conversation with jzeeo, and I would like to continue doing that."
ungtss, if I ad a buck for every interesting conversation you have barged in on, I could pay my mortgage.
The difference is, this conversation is substantive, and you are barging in with a bunch of irrelevant posturing about which of us Is the good guy, and which is the bad, based on your assumption that every time I use the word "fake" I'm referring to you. This is a blog. In the end, it doesn't matter what any of us think of each other. What matters is what we bring back to the real world. Your constant posturing is a waste of time. It is what insecure people with no ideas of their own do. Grow up. Talk about the substance. Or at least let us.
"Your constant posturing is a waste of time."
Physician, heal thyself.
How about you give me a chance, by stopping all this nonsense about me, and talking about the substance. You might be surprised. We might actually be able to talk about something interesting.
By the way, ungtss, you have a very simple way of insuring that I never respond to any of your posts.
To wit: never respond to mine. Treat them as if they don't exist. If you do that, I can't tell you how pleased I will be to return the favor. As I've said before, I want nothing to do with you.
I didn't want to respond to your ongoing libelous remarks. In the end, I had to. Silentio assentit.
But all of this can end. All you have to do is not respond. And I won't either. Simple as that.
"Hey, and it's even free to read online."
It looks like Daniel Barnes is a liar. I have no problem with a person asking for payment for his work if you so value it, but the above claim by Daniel Barnes looks to be a complete lie.
"I can't see any difference between the two. What is anti-life if not valuing death and the destruction of life?"
Well, perhaps there is no difference, if you consider all life as sacred and inviolate, and any action at all which destroys (or even inconveniences) it to be "anti" life.
But even Rand does not, leaving "self-defense" as an exception. Even that is stretched thin, as in Atlas Shrugged Dagny shoots dead a guard who is not actually hurting or attacking anyone, he just won't get out of her way.
Dahmer likely valued his own life and his own desires more than he respected the lives and desires of others - he did not kill himself, after all. But that's not "anti-life" - that's "anti-SOME-life".
(One could even say it's the ultimate expression of egoism: one's wants and desires trumping all other concerns, including any idea of the sanctity of other people's lives.)
Even terrorists don't wish to destroy all life, just the life that doesn't agree with or obey them. (Plus some may believe that physical death is not actually death of one's consciousness.) Just as in WWII we destroyed the life that opposed us, in order to preserve the life that we approved of.
That we might not have a clear understanding of the motive of a school-shooter does not mean one doesn't exist. It could be simply a hurt or rage that compels one to hurt others out of despair or frustration - which does not necessarily mean the goal is so much to destroy LIFE, but that by destroying some life, one can cause others to feel immeasurable pain.
Even if you found a person who wanted nothing more than to destroy life for the sake of destroying life and nothing else, such a person would be a rare aberration. Those who destroy life do have their reasons - even if they are flawed or depraved reasons - that don't have anything to do with being anti-life at all.
@ The Secular Walk:
Barnes already admitted his mistake, you're a bit late to that party.
I get it, Gordon has to respond because silentio assentit, but ungtss does not. Ungtss can solve the problem by not responding to Gordon's nonsense, but poor Gordon is compelled to respond to set the record straight.
Do you live and work in a context where people actually fall for that crap?
J,
“Well, perhaps there is no difference, if you consider all life as sacred and inviolate, and any action at all which destroys (or even inconveniences) it to be "anti" life.”
I think Rand would understand “anti-life” in a more subtle sense – in the sense of actually taking visceral pleasure in harming things. And the greater and more beautiful the thing, the greater the pleasure in destroying it. It’s not enough to open fire in a big city alley where you could hit some alcoholic bums, watch some blood spatter, and get away. You have to open fire in an elementary school. You have to destroy the most innocent thing you can find. The thing least deserving of dying. Because that’s what you get off on. Destroying the good because it's good.
“Even that is stretched thin, as in Atlas Shrugged Dagny shoots dead a guard who is not actually hurting or attacking anyone, he just won't get out of her way.”
Indeed, but only because that guard was standing in the way of a greater value to her. He was imprisoning an innocent man and wouldn’t get out of the way. She did not destroy him for the sake of destroying him, but for the sake of a greater value: another person.
“Even terrorists don't wish to destroy all life, just the life that doesn't agree with or obey them.”
The question there is whether their beliefs are genuinely and honestly held, or whether they are rationalizations? You can tell the difference when you talk with people. An honest person takes the time to understand what you say, analyzes it, and even if he disagrees, he responds. A rationalizing person takes every cognitive step possible to avoid that. He insulates himself from reality, deliberately, systematically. Again, you can tell the difference simply by watching how a person thinks and responds to things.
You, for instance, are clearly an honest believer. Even though I disagree with you, I can tell from the way you communicate that you actually believe what you’re saying to me.
So the question is, are people who hold these horrifying ideas that justify mass slaughter genuine, honest believers? Or are they rationalizing? I believe firmly that they are rationalizing. Based not on the fact that they disagree with me, but rather on the process by which they think. A process I’ve experienced personally. By means of the same judgment by which I determine that you’re an honest guy. They act and think fundamentally differently than you do.
Rationalizing, of course, means that the desire comes first, and the ideas are merely a way of making sense of the desire. Making it morally acceptable. Thus if a person wants to kill rich bankers out of envy, he might come up with an elaborate theory of racial supremacy to rationalize it. But the scheme is secondary. Envy is primary. And you know this by how he thinks.
"I get it, Gordon has to respond because silentio assentit, but ungtss does not."
You don't have anything to respond to. I haven't libeled you. Libel is your specialty, not mine.
And anyone reading my post could easily tell that I was making a "from now on" proposal.
How about it? Offer still stands.
"You don't have anything to respond to. I haven't libeled you. Libel is your specialty, not mine."
if you recall, you and I got our collective panties in a wad when you started calling me a troll. based on what? the fact that I continued to state my opinion notwithstanding the fact that I wasn't changing anybody's mind:).
as to whether you've libeled me, calling libel my specialty fits the bill.
but how about this. you quit talking about me, i'll quit talking about you, but if we want to talk about stuff that's actually interesting, and respond to each other on the score, it's fair game.
deal?
"but how about this. you quit talking about me, i'll quit talking about you, but if we want to talk about stuff that's actually interesting, and respond to each other on the score, it's fair game.
deal?"
If by that you mean we talk issues and don't get into inferences about someone's intelligence, pyschological make-up or integrity - fine with me.
Call that a deal. :)
Excellent brother -- that's exactly what I had in mind. Thank you:).
" It’s not enough to open fire in a big city alley where you could hit some alcoholic bums, watch some blood spatter, and get away. You have to open fire in an elementary school. You have to destroy the most innocent thing you can find. The thing least deserving of dying. Because that’s what you get off on. Destroying the good because it's good."
And this is an example of one of the concept's myriad problems - namely, how in the world can you know this to be true? Who has confessed to such a thing?
It's one thing when Rand can show us inside the mind of a Jim Taggart and explicitly say, "well, he wants to destroy good things because he actually hates good things", but it's another to suppose that you can look inside the mind of an elementary school shooter and KNOW that he "must" destroy the most innocent thing he can find. On what can one base such a statement, but sheer personal bias?
This is not learning or understanding the position of the other side, this is assuming one's own interpretation of events and declaring it to be an accurate representation. "When I want your opinion, I'll tell it to you!"
"The question there is whether their beliefs are genuinely and honestly held, or whether they are rationalizations?"
Well, I don't think that is actually the question. They may or may not be. But the fact that they may have a flawed or rationalized reason for causing death or destruction does not change the fact that they have a reason that is not simply being "against life".
"Rationalizing, of course, means that the desire comes first, and the ideas are merely a way of making sense of the desire. Making it morally acceptable."
Which is, of course, how I view a great deal of Objectivism, and the concept of "anti-life".
"Indeed, but only because that guard was standing in the way of a greater value to her. He was imprisoning an innocent man and wouldn’t get out of the way. She did not destroy him for the sake of destroying him, but for the sake of a greater value: another person."
And it could be said that a terrorist destroys others for what he feels to be a greater value than their lives.
Consider the Dagny episode further. It is not clear the guard knows he is imprisoning an innocent man. (By whose standards? Galt indeed was working for the destruction of the US government, which would make him a traitor, regardless of how righteous one felt his cause to be.) We're not even sure he knows there's a prisoner at all, Dagny only demands to be let in on a falsehood, does not present the case of Galt or his innocence to the guard. She offers one ultimatum: move or I'll shoot. Obey or die, as totalitarian as it gets.
Is the guard's participation in a corrupt system justification for ending his life? Or is Dagny like so many others, willing to loosen espoused principles in order to get what she wants in a crunch?
“And this is an example of one of the concept's myriad problems - namely, how in the world can you know this to be true? Who has confessed to such a thing?”
Well, according to objectivism, you only learn it to be true when you see it in its naked form. By dealing with these people up close and personal for so long, and under such circumstances that you can no longer deny it:). That is, in fact, the story’s plot arc:). It’s also how I came to believe it, personally, in my own life. By seeing it at work. So I don’t blame you for not believing it. I certainly won’t try and foolishly argue you into it. It would be downright unobjectivist:).
I can just tell you that I know it because I’ve seen it in its naked form, and that’s why I believe as I do:). It’s not based on reading in a book that everybody who thinks something is anti-life, and then using it as a catch-all label for whatever I want to discredit. It’s from watching what the people who profess these ideas really do behind the scenes.
“Well, I don't think that is actually the question. They may or may not be. But the fact that they may have a flawed or rationalized reason for causing death or destruction does not change the fact that they have a reason that is not simply being "against life".”
Unless it’s not a reason, but an excuse.
Let me give you a down-home example. My wife, daughter and I went skiing this last winter. On the way back to the room, my daughter didn’t want to go inside. But does she say “I don’t want to go inside?” No. She starts denying that the room is ours! “That’s not our room! Our room is on a different floor! Look, our hallway doesn’t have a couch! We better go find it!” Argument after argument after argument, trying to convince herself – and us – that the place she didn’t want to go was the wrong place:).
This is of course how a 3 year old deals with feelings she doesn’t fully understand how to process yet. And because of my understanding of rationalization, I didn’t yell at her. I simply helped her identify the real root of the problem: she didn’t want to go into the room.
My belief that these people are rationalizing, rather than honestly acting on genuine belief, is based on my personal experience watching them act just like my daughter. Denying the obvious, making argument after argument after argument that make zero sense. Because deep down, there’s something they want that they won’t allow themselves to admit to themselves.
This is also something I wouldn’t try to argue you into. I’d just suggest keeping it in mind, when you watch how things work in the real world. See if it fits. I think you’ll find it does.
“And it could be said that a terrorist destroys others for what he feels to be a greater value than their lives.”
Again, if they’re actually acting on their professed motives. Which is the matter in dispute:).
“We're not even sure he knows there's a prisoner at all, Dagny only demands to be let in on a falsehood, does not present the case of Galt or his innocence to the guard. She offers one ultimatum: move or I'll shoot. Obey or die, as totalitarian as it gets.”
I can’t say I remember that dialogue in detail, but I remember it being rather extended. I’ll have to dig it up.
"This is also something I wouldn’t try to argue you into. I’d just suggest keeping it in mind, when you watch how things work in the real world. See if it fits. I think you’ll find it does."
That's also how confirmation bias works.
"That's also how confirmation bias works."
On the contrary, that's how hypotheses are tested:). confirmation bias is interpreting evidence through the lens of an already adopted theory. hypothesis testing compares evidence to the hypothesis and sees if the hypothesis stands up to scrutiny:).
"hypothesis testing compares evidence to the hypothesis and sees if the hypothesis stands up to scrutiny:)."
Only the evidence would have to be pretty much both subjective and outright guessing, in the case of how you describe looking at/for "anti-life" behavior. Just "looking at stuff and seeing if it fits" is not a particularly rigorous method of hypothesis testing.
and with that goes the whole science of psychology:).
Jzero,
You are truly a thinker. I've had similar discussions with other Objectivists (I got banned from a website where Daniel Barnes and I used to post for analyzing a sex crime along similar terms) and to ungtss's credit, he doesn't go in whole hog with the ad hominem arguments against your view ("How can anyone who is not a monster dare say that killing children is not Anti-Life?"), but he is dancing around the edges.
ungtss said...
and with that goes the whole science of psychology:).
Actually, it depends on what kind of psychology. For example, cognitive psychology uses all information to test hypotheses, not just first person accounts of an experience. So a psychologist might be looking at brain wave patterns while talking to a subject to see whether his self-awareness matches up to his actions.
Many hypotheses can be more rigorously tested than most people who are in love with philosophical approaches to these issue realize. It's one of the reasons I disdain philosophical debates in general - most of the people who engage in them can be far more productively engaged in other things which are far more testable and practical.
"For example, cognitive psychology uses all information to test hypotheses, not just first person accounts of an experience. So a psychologist might be looking at brain wave patterns while talking to a subject to see whether his self-awareness matches up to his actions."
I wouldn't object to using those tools to help understand motive. But unfortunately that's not practical in the vast majority of cases. As ordinary people, understand other people and their motives is an indispensable part of living a happy and successful life. But we have to do it the old fashioned way. By watching and listening.
Actually, i think the stadler version of think was to attack "thought detached from practical action." whether theoretical physics fits that bill is a second question. She lionized galt's understanding of theoretical physics, because it was combined with practical action in the context of voluntary trade. so i don't think it's fair to say she was attacking theoretical physics, so much as attacking the wish to insulate theory from practice.
Well, Rand thought theoretical physics was an example of such thinking and that was her target. Generalizing beyond what she actually targeted is something I would have done, but sometimes, you take a "literally what was written" attitude towards what her scope of written statements was sometimes so I didn't want to go beyond the context.
I'm fairly well read in moral philosophy ... obviously it's possible that some of the ideas i consider to be original are not, if i haven't found those source materials. are you aware of any precursors for her fundamental tenets?
I'm not sure if any of her tenets were really original and most of the original stuff is either badly fleshed out or wrong. It's just that so often, Objectivists claim that she was original and I keep on asking them how they know this and they never provide any evidence in that regard.
For example, her axioms are almost standard Aristotlelian logic, but the difference between how she uses them and most modern philosophers view them is that she claims that they apply to real objects, while modern philosophers claim they apply to ideas or mental images.
Her politics is largely libertarian. Rational self-interest has a long history in ethics, politics and economics. Her epistemology mixes up a lot of things and is pretty confused Greg's critique is pretty thorough as was Scott Ryan's.
More of this makes sense if you have read Greg's book.
"For example, cognitive psychology uses all information to test hypotheses, not just first person accounts of an experience. So a psychologist might be looking at brain wave patterns while talking to a subject to see whether his self-awareness matches up to his actions."
I wouldn't object to using those tools to help understand motive. But unfortunately that's not practical in the vast majority of cases. As ordinary people, understand other people and their motives is an indispensable part of living a happy and successful life. But we have to do it the old fashioned way. By watching and listening.
I was not saying that people shouldn't be practical if they cannot be scientific. I was saying that your statement "there goes the science of psychology" is parochial because it doesn't take into account the various experimental aspects of the field.
"I was not saying that people shouldn't be practical if they cannot be scientific. I was saying that your statement "there goes the science of psychology" is parochial because it doesn't take into account the various experimental aspects of the field."
Ah. My comment was in reponse to this:
"Only the evidence would have to be pretty much both subjective and outright guessing, in the case of how you describe looking at/for "anti-life" behavior. Just "looking at stuff and seeing if it fits" is not a particularly rigorous method of hypothesis testing."
My point was simply that this criticism of evidence derived from "looking at stuff and seeing what fits" cuts out too much of our means of learning about people. even a scientist using brain-wave scanners can't get away from "looking at stuff and seeing what fits." he still has to look at the brain wave scans. And unless he's a scheister, he still needs to watch and listen to the person he's studying.
the only point i'm making here is that watching and listening to people to understand their motives is as yet the only tool we have:). brain wave scanners may tell us where things are happening, but they can't tell us what a person is thinking:). not yet anyway.
I'm not sure i've said anything about kant's personal faults, so i'm not sure where this came from. i certainly don't have any strong opinions about him, personally. i've only identified two of his fundamental ideas. which were in fact his ideas. whether or not those ideas are good or not, and whether or not he was a good person, haven't been put on the table.
The point was whether you were being as charitable in interpreting Kant as you are when interpreting Rand, since you are willing to explain some of Rand's attitudes by anxiety disorder, I believe.
that said, i think some of kant's work could be understood in terms of being raised by fundamentalist mystic parents, and possibly OCD, as i understand he was known to pace the town in exactly the same route on exactly the same schedule every day, which is consistent with OCD. OCD is also an anxiety disorder, btw.
Exactly. IF this is the case, is he still the evilest man in the world?
i think she left room for such explanations when she talked about how man's only choice with regard to philosophy was to develop one consciously or allow one to develop randomly, i.e. biologically.
even so, i think her "tabula rasa" argument would have been much better framed as "tabula animala." essentially, you are handed an animal body and mind, and the heroic act is to form a human out of it. this would have been much more consistent with what we know of psychology, and would have opened up an examination of the many hard-wired animal processes which can be overcome by deliberate effort, but must be identified to be overcome. latent anxiety being one of these.
What literature is the source of this? Sounds interesting.
My point was simply that this criticism of evidence derived from "looking at stuff and seeing what fits" cuts out too much of our means of learning about people. even a scientist using brain-wave scanners can't get away from "looking at stuff and seeing what fits." he still has to look at the brain wave scans. And unless he's a scheister, he still needs to watch and listen to the person he's studying.
This "criticism" does not cut out learning. Rather, it bring to bear the right level of skepticism towards people who claim to know other's motives, especially when they have presented hardly any real empirical evidence to support such claims. The truth is that people who make complex claims about what other people's motives (especially people they have never met) are get away with it because they are never tested on such motives. That's why opinions are so common - there is little to lose by having them.
The only point i'm making here is that watching and listening to people to understand their motives is as yet the only tool we have:). brain wave scanners may tell us where things are happening, but they can't tell us what a person is thinking:). not yet anyway.
No, it is not the only tool we have. We may also have reports from other people who have watched them in the pat. We may know some of their past acts. We may have other medical or physical knowledge. All of this and any other relevant knowledge is brought to bear on the situation. And with brain scans, while we cannot read the judgments that might support the activity in the brain ("I have pain in my heart"), activity in the brain has been correlated to many emotions, so brain scans can sometimes let you know what emotion is being experienced.
"Exactly. IF this is the case, is he still the evilest man in the world?"
I don't know, never met the guy:). i do see a lot of dangerous implications in his ideas that remind me of a lot of people i'd rather forget i ever knew.
"What literature is the source of this? Sounds interesting."
That philosophical concept is my own, i've been developing as a refinement of rand's ideas. The scientific basis for it is everywhere -- essentially the whole of modern neuroscience, but one particularly good layman's introduction is "you are not your brain."
"This "criticism" does not cut out learning. Rather, it bring to bear the right level of skepticism towards people who claim to know other's motives, especially when they have presented hardly any real empirical evidence to support such claims."
It's interesting, one consistent theme i'm noticing here is the difference between "you have no basis for saying that" and "i believe this." i'm not quite sure where the difference comes from, but most folks here seem very preoccupied wither whether i'm justified in making claims about motives, and i'm only interested in my own personal understanding, not "making claims." i find it very useful to understand people's motives in dealing with them. i'm not "making claims" that other people must submit to. i'm just making observations and sharing evidence:).
"No, it is not the only tool we have. We may also have reports from other people who have watched them in the pat. We may know some of their past acts. We may have other medical or physical knowledge. All of this and any other relevant knowledge is brought to bear on the situation. "
Well, that's just incorporating other people's watching and listening into our own understanding. same tool, just somebody else using it:).
"the only point i'm making here is that watching and listening to people to understand their motives is as yet the only tool we have:)"
Yes, but the way in which we watch and listen is crucial, if we intend to avoid our own bias.
http://youarenotsosmart.com/ is a site that explores the myriad ways people's minds fall into delusions and mistakes, and often cites studies done to find these patterns of behavior. And when these studies are done, they are constructed so as to avoid letting the researchers' personal biases influence the conclusions. Plus, they tend to keep their conclusions confined to the evidence they have, normally they don't make statements about their findings beyond what is reasonable and provable.
This is a higher standard than the little you've described as the process by which you've gathered your own evidence. And your evidence, such as it is, seems to be extrapolated by you from the observable (someone has a shifty manner, evasive arguments, denial of reality, whatever) to the non-observable (deep down, these people hate and want to destroy life itself).
I will grant that I don't know all the details of your encounters, so I can't accurately judge whether you have what I think is a justifiable reason to believe that people are anti-life. All I can say is that as you've described it so far, I don't think there is such a justification, and I suspect a certain amount of bias.
(Which is not to say that I think you need to provide any further evidence - plus there's the issue of what is probably a widely different standard between us for what constitutes "anti-life" in the first place.)
"and i'm only interested in my own personal understanding, not "making claims.""
Do you claim that you are NOT making claims? Because you do seem to be asserting a number of things.
The other point I forgot to make was that the "science of psychology", where people just made up what they thought motivated other people without rigorous testing or safeguards for eliminating confirmation bias resulted in Freud. Freud also framed his assertions in ways that they could hardly be tested or falsified so it was almost religious in nature.
Falsification cannot prevent all errors, but the ability to test theories is the key to quick resolution of differences. Otherwise, debate is interminable and will remain strictly ideological. Generally, I don't consider the free will determinism debate interesting other than when it impinges on the predictability and psychological analysis of human behavior. Without admitting that human behaviors, including choices, can be analyzed to understand their causes, there is little reason to engage in psychological analysis. That is the most important thing IMO, and not the specific details of whether the will is "truly free" or not.
It's interesting, one consistent theme i'm noticing here is the difference between "you have no basis for saying that" and "i believe this." i'm not quite sure where the difference comes from, but most folks here seem very preoccupied wither whether i'm justified in making claims about motives, and i'm only interested in my own personal understanding, not "making claims." i find it very useful to understand people's motives in dealing with them. i'm not "making claims" that other people must submit to. i'm just making observations and sharing evidence:).
Yes, the reason for the concern is that personal understanding not rigorously tested is mostly rational speculation. It may be right, it may be wrong, it may be transcendent genius, but it has limitations because it has not be subjected to serious scrutiny. Knowing what influenced someone to a certain position might reveal external research, personal experiments etc. that might help in understanding them as well as further knowledge. While justification is not the same thing as truth, understanding how someone justifies their beliefs can provide insight into how rigorous they are in eliminating confirmation bias from their speculations.
In fact, I would probably be an Objectivist today if I hadn't studied alternative views on Rand and struggled to understand them - and trust me, given when I was coming from, Greg was much harder to understand than Rand, who was in many ways a kindred spirit. I couldn't wrap my head around Greg's work about the contingency of facts back then. But over time, while trying to understand why this was considered valuable in some contexts, I was won over by it.
It is fine to be concerned with personal understanding. In fact, like I said earlier, many people hold strong opinions that are never rigorously tested, and some strong opinions that can never be rigorously tested. For me, dissent over such issues is almost impossible to resolve with an agreement on some implication of the position that cannot be wished away. However, the problem is that as Aquinas said, conflict/contradiction can always be resolved by making a distinction. Therefore, if all men are mortal and you see an immortal "man", you can simply resolve it by saying that the immortal "man" is not a man, though that might be eluding the real issue at hand from a truly practical standpoint. Scientific rigor is not required for many personal and practical decisions. However, when one wants to claim universal truth and has not done some research into whether his claims apply universally or not, or at least apply beyond his personal context, we gotta quote that famous philosopher cop: "A man's gotta know his limitations."
Well, that's just incorporating other people's watching and listening into our own understanding. same tool, just somebody else using it:).
Yes, but with the distinction that another person is doing it, so the redundancy might eliminate some subjectivity. You may be certain you heard something or saw something, but when other people report different accounts, it doesn't mean that you are wrong, but it does create a conflict that needs resolution if the practical implications are sufficiently important. Moreover, based on experience, ideas etc., some of this evidence might be given more weight than others. Again, one only needs to go as far as practically necessary in everyday life, but people familiar with scientific rigor will know the difference between such practical levels of justification and scientific (or at least, research) levels of justification.
I’ve been following the ‘anti-life’ debate with some interest. I found it striking that most of the discussions revolved around the question: do evil persons do the things they do because they are in fact “anti-life”? In other words: can this idea be scientifically and/or experientially confirmed?
One can hit that ball back and forth across the net for a very long time – and people have. I personally don’t find the anti-life explanation very helpful – but I can understand how someone could believe that it makes sense.
Now Ayn Rand would certainly believe that there is overwhelming factual confirmation for all her views. However, it’s important to note that confirmation of this kind is – for Rand at least – a strictly secondary issue. At its root, her argument is heavily philosophical and rationalistic rather than empirical.
As I see it, the base line argument runs something like this. A moral, rational being is so because he chooses to think. When such a person ponders a course of action, he will have life as his ultimate standard of value – either explicitly or implicitly
Persons who end up being evil are so because they do not choose to think. They have therefore nothing to guide them: they are “swinging like a helpless branch in the wind of an uncharted moral wilderness.” Some may just get along if by chance they stumble on behaviours that aren’t too destructive; others, with no thinking to guide them, may drift into actions of unspeakable depravity.
As always, Rand frames all of this as a choice between two options that are mutually exclusive and jointly exhaustive. If you have chosen to think and to be guided by your thinking, you have life as your ultimate standard of value. If you haven’t made that choice, life is not your standard of value. Does that make you “anti-life”? Not necessarily. You may have drifted into just enough rational behaviour to get by. But the longer you fail to think and the more things you fail to think about, the more likely you are to do something really appalling. In effect, you are a moral time bomb waiting to go off.
The important point about this argument is that Rand sees it as a set of logical inferences from self-evident philosophical premises. In her eyes, it cannot possibly be false. The life/anti-life distinction isn’t a mere empirical generalization: it is a “fact of reality”. If you think you have found evidence to cast doubt upon it, there is something wrong with your facts – not with her argument.
In short, this is another example of a deeply destructive approach to the world that is solidly embedded in Objectivist thinking. This, and other arguments like it, may explain why many Objectivists can be indifferent or even hostile to scientific research that seems to contradict their views. The world becomes a much less secure place when we seek to be guided by the facts as we know them rather than by a rationalistic argument that dictates what our investigations are supposed to find. But, for me at least, that less secure place more closely resembles the world we live in.
J and X,
I think the appropriate standard of proof depends on at least three factors: a) the tools available, b) the stakes of action based on the decision, and c) the necessity of acting.
Where the tools are available, of course, you should use them if you can. Where the stakes are higher, you should do more. And where it’s necessary to act, you might take shortcuts on evidence that you wouldn’t take if there were no need to act.
In that context, the question is, “how much evidence should I accumulate about the motives of people in my daily life?” On the question of tools, I don’t have scientific control studies or brain scans available, so they’re out. Furthermore, brainscans can’t identify motives anyway, so even if I had the tools, they wouldn’t serve the purpose. However, a cautious observation of a person’s behavior, inferences about the motives of that behavior, and testing of hypotheses about motives, is within the scope of my tools.
On the question of the stakes, the stakes are actually quite low, because the outcome only affects my relationship with people outside my family. I’m not throwing anybody in jail. Not killing anybody. Not calling for the extermination of all who disagree with my views. Low stakes.
On the question of the necessity of deciding, I’d say it’s absolutely necessary to decide on the motives of others, because many people do, in fact, say one thing while having a different, unstated motive, and a failure to identify that motive leaves you a sheep among wolves.
One thing that hasn’t been clearly defined yet is the methodology for identifying these hidden motives. The answer is to infer goals from action. If a person lies, you ask yourself what the lie accomplishes. And that becomes your hypothesis. You then test a person’s future actions and words against that hypothesis. Do their actions consistently target that goal? The more actions you see consistent with a particular inference, the stronger your hypothesis.
Because you must do this in order to function successfully on earth, and because the stakes in personal relationships are quite low, and because brain scans can’t identify motive anyway, the less than fully scientific rigorous methodology is adequate to the purpose, I think.
"The important point about this argument is that Rand sees it as a set of logical inferences from self-evident philosophical premises. In her eyes, it cannot possibly be false. The life/anti-life distinction isn’t a mere empirical generalization: it is a “fact of reality”. If you think you have found evidence to cast doubt upon it, there is something wrong with your facts – not with her argument."
I don't think this is consistent with her dramatization of dagny and hank's discovery of the "anti-life" premise through empirical means. in fact their discovery was driven entirely by seeing behavior motivated by the same hidden purpose in so many contexts that no explanation other than an "anti-life premise" could explain the evidence.
Gordon,
Is rationalism deeply destructive? It really depends on how far it distorts your behavior from practical ideals. Would Rand have been more popular had she been less controversial? I highly doubt it.
The empiricist admits that there is no clear and obvious relationship between truth and success. I am more than aware of a few people whose faith that things would work out eventually lead them to embark on risky complicated quests which turned out stunningly well, but would have earned them great condemnation where these explore rationally analyzed in the early stages. Conviction and faith can be girded by rational factors but are strictly speaking emotional, as is all complex human decision-making (if you doubt this, read work of Antonio Damasio on the subject).
Simplifying the world has major advantages, especially for risk takers and in cases where the complexity can make you prone to inaction. Sometimes it is better to have a bad plan than to have no plan at all, as the bad plan can sometimes be improved with feedback into a good one from a practical perspective, while a perfect plan or the search for one may leave one inactive and unable to take the first step.
To conclude: as my favorite philosopher Blanshard often pointed out, truth is not the sole good in this world and there are many contexts in which other goods are far more important. Is the Objectivist attitude anti-intellectual from an empirical scientific perspective? Sure. Is it deeply destructive? That will vary from individual to individual.
"Simplifying the world has major advantages, especially for risk takers and in cases where the complexity can make you prone to inaction. Sometimes it is better to have a bad plan than to have no plan at all, as the bad plan can sometimes be improved with feedback into a good one from a practical perspective, while a perfect plan or the search for one may leave one inactive and unable to take the first step."
I would apply this principle to hypotheses about people's hidden motives, as well.
Ungtss,
Yes. For a testable ideas viewpoint, all that should matter is that as long as the idea is in principle testable, then it can be refined over time. The problem with the hidden motives viewpoint is that it is more often assumed than tested. If it was tested and we found that people who did these things were motivated by an Anti Life premise, all would be well. However, what we get more often is the claim that an Anti Life premise is at the root of it all, with little if any specific data to back this up. And of course, in some cases, when the motivation is more mundane, it is still classified as Anti Life so confirmation bias takes over.
However, just as evil is a broad categorization of a lot of actions with a tenuous empirical connection, my guess is that Anti-life is a similar concept to evil, but with a more Randian and Objectivist slant.
"Yes. For a testable ideas viewpoint, all that should matter is that as long as the idea is in principle testable, then it can be refined over time. The problem with the hidden motives viewpoint is that it is more often assumed than tested. If it was tested and we found that people who did these things were motivated by an Anti Life premise, all would be well. However, what we get more often is the claim that an Anti Life premise is at the root of it all, with little if any specific data to back this up. And of course, in some cases, when the motivation is more mundane, it is still classified as Anti Life so confirmation bias takes over."
Fair enough, to the extent an objectivist did that, however, he wouldn't be following his own rules. objectivist epistemology expressly moves from observation to identification to abstract thought. while someone calling themselves objectivist might not do that in this context, their mistake would be a distinctly non-objectivist one:).
Ungtss,
The level of rigor for a personal philosophy is much lower than that of scientific truth for many individuals and of course, varies from person to person. As long as the distinction in the quality of both those judgments is made, all is well. However, too many Objectivistes want to eat their cake and have it, using rational speculation to arrive at conclusions they find plausible, and without the empirical testing to back up the Objectivity of their speculation, they want others to accept their positions as incontrovertibly true.
That's why Objectivism is more religious than scientific. It takes the lingo of science, bit doesn't deal seriously with the limits of certainty and the value of certitude. It often conflates both and in doing so, elevated ration speculation to the same level of truth as science without critically analyzing the issue. Of course, one would have to admit the limits of individual objectivity to do so, but Objectivists for obvious reasons refuse to do this.
"However, too many Objectivistes want to eat their cake and have it, using rational speculation to arrive at conclusions they find plausible, and without the empirical testing to back up the Objectivity of their speculation, they want others to accept their positions as incontrovertibly true."
To the extent they're doing this, I'd argue it's in spite of, rather than because of, the objectivist philosophy itself. Where in the actual philosophy do you find support for rationalism?
The question here is simply one of causation: does objectivism _cause_ rationalist speculation, or do people calling themselves objectivists engage in it periodically, despite themselves?
I, for one, consider myself objectivist. My only disagreements with Rand are with her failures to comprehensively apply her own ideas. As in the cases where she engaged in the same sort of rationalist speculation she deplored.
one of the earliest and most egregious examples, to me anyway, were her arguments about abortion. no matter where one falls on that issue, rand's arguments in support of her position were conspicuously devoid of support in reason or evidence. that was actually the issue where I clued into the fact that Ayn Rand != John Galt:).
At the same time, if one's criticisms of rand amount to little more than a recognition that she failed to live up to the ideal she expressed in john galt, it's rather a trivial criticism. i'm interested in what people think is wrong with _galt_, and this doesn't fit that bill:).
We may not agree on this ungtss, but in Objectivism and similar philosophies, the focus is on confirming an idea, not on disproving it. Therefore, confirmation bias is built into how things are viewed as exceptions are discounted as being not truly what was being sought (for example, a tolerant Objectivist) and only those confirming examples are remember (intolerant Objectivists arguing online). This is a common failing even amongst experienced scientists and is likely the key driver of peer reviewed research.
For this reason, I think you ate not quite right when you say that if an Objectivist fails to look at the evidence, he is not being an Objectivist. Few Objectivists write out their arguments and spend time pretending the arguments were advanced by other people. That is a regular practice for me.
“I don't think this is consistent with her dramatization of dagny and hank's discovery of the "anti-life" premise through empirical means. in fact their discovery was driven entirely by seeing behavior motivated by the same hidden purpose in so many contexts that no explanation other than an "anti-life premise" could explain the evidence.”
Okay, let’s talk about Dagny and Hank. More particularly Dagny - since her case is presented by Rand with the utmost care.
First off, let’s be clear: Rand certainly believes that there is empirical confirmation of her views: she dramatizes that in the stories of both Rearden and Dagny. And of course, empirical confirmation there will be – when she’s writing the script. After all, as someone has wryly observed, most hunting stories end with the death of the lion because lions don’t write books. . . :)
When Dagny decides not to remain with the strikers, Rand is very, very careful to frame the situation so that no moral blame can attach to her action. She is returning from Galt’s Gulch because, she says, “I cannot believe that men can refuse to see. . . They still love their lives – and that is the uncorrupted portion of their minds.” To which Hugh Akston replies: “Do they?”
Then, after Galt’s arrest, Dagny is surveying the people in the Wayne-Falkland ballroom: “Do they want to live? – she thought in self-mockery. Through the stunned numbness of her mind, she remembered the sound of his sentence: ‘The desire not to be anything, is the desire not to be.'”
Note that Dagny is not remembering an empirical claim: she’s remembering a philosophical argument. The message being conveyed by Rand to Dagny is: “John Galt presented a set of logical inferences from self-evident philosophical premises. Of course the facts bore him out. They had to. But by waiting for the facts, you had to pay an immense price.”
Right at the beginning of this thread, Michael Prescott wrote: “I remember Peikoff saying, in one of his taped lectures, that ‘philosophy has veto power over science.’” I suspect he was making a point about physics, but I think the same cast of mind is in evidence here. As often happens with Peikoff, he is being commendably clear about one of the least acceptable aspects of Rand’s thought.
As I read Galt’s speech, the life/anti-life distinction has “veto power” over provinces of thought like psychology. I think that Rand believes that no factual refutation of the argument can ever be possible. That's very different and far more extreme than saying that the facts bear out Galt's claim. And that is what I consider to be so destructive.
X: “For this reason, I think you ate not quite right when you say that if an Objectivist fails to look at the evidence, he is not being an Objectivist. Few Objectivists write out their arguments and spend time pretending the arguments were advanced by other people. That is a regular practice for me.”
I don’t see a logical connection between the number of people doing something, and the consistency between behavior and expressed ideas. One may say, for instance, that few Christians lay down their life for their brother. One can say that laying down your life for your brother is not practicable or moral. But one cannot say that few Christians lay down their lives for their brothers because they are Christians. And it seems to me that is what is happening here. The primary source materials on objectivism do not support the behavior you’re observing. On the contrary, as you point out, confirmation bias is a common human frailty:).
I admire your writing down arguments and pretending they are advanced by other people. I personally am lazier. I go to places where I can find people who disagree with me, and let them do the hard work for me, by identifying all the flaws and ambiguities in what I’m saying:). On the other hand, I'm always careful to return the favor for anyone who might appreciate it:).
G:
“Note that Dagny is not remembering an empirical claim: she’s remembering a philosophical argument.”
That’s true, but the philosophical argument doesn’t stand alone. It stands in the context first of a number of people who “desire to be nothing.”
The argument itself then provides a framework for interpreting that desire. Are there other frameworks for interpreting the desire to be nothing? Possibly. But what are they?
Ungtss,
Since you often get sidetracked by sidebars, I will state the main issue plainly: Rand never dealt seriously with the sources of error in reasoning. She didn't take this issue seriously. The side effect is that Objectivists tend to overrate the value of their own ruminations while failing to appreciate why such ruminations, more likely than not, will be inadequate from a scientific perspective.
There are other issue where her xample ruins the common sense of budding Objectivists: her special foundations approach to knowledge, her essentialism and love for definitions even when the issue was too complex to be realistically embodied by one, her use of words in ways that were not aligned with common usage and then claiming heredefinition was correct, rather than creating a new word if she wanted to deviate from common usage and so on.
These are all practices with limitations that when understood, make someone much wiser about the limitations of reasoning in general. However, discussing such limits would not have suited her view of the individual and the mind.
"Rand never dealt seriously with the sources of error in reasoning. She didn't take this issue seriously. The side effect is that Objectivists tend to overrate the value of their own ruminations while failing to appreciate why such ruminations, more likely than not, will be inadequate from a scientific perspective."
There are two issues here: first, whether she dealt with errors in reasoning, and second whether any such failure led to a tendency to overrate the value of one's own ruminations, relative to your contention that ruminations are typically inadequate from a scientific perspective.
First, I don't think she completely failed to deal with errors in reasoning. She may have failed to deal with some, but she certainly dealt with others. Obviously she was better at criticizing her opponents' errors than her own. But nevertheless, she did deal with a number of errors in reasoning.
The second issue is whether her ideas lead people to overvalue their own ruminations in light of your contention that such ruminations are likely to be inadequate from a scientific perspective.
The problem here is that measuring philosophical ideas by a scientific standard is like using a hammer as a saw:). science examines by a particular method: experimentation. philosophical questions cannot be answered by this method, because they are not subject to experimentation. on the contrary, the very idea of a "scientific perspective" on questions presumes certain philosophical views about science which are not themselves scientifically testable.
That is why philosophy must be tested by the rules of philosophy, not by the rules of science. Because the rules of science are not up to the job.
"That is why philosophy must be tested by the rules of philosophy, not by the rules of science. Because the rules of science are not up to the job."
The problem is that Rand is using philosophical reasoning to arrive at factual claims. Those factual claims are very definitely the problem of science. If they are factually disconfirmed or if they prove to have no predictive value, one should discard them. And the anti-life analysis is on any reckoning a factual claim about certain kinds of behaviour.
For the moment, let's put aside the fact that for Rand the "anti-life" label extends a long, long way past creatures like Jeffrey Dahmer. Even if we're just dealing with the monsters, factual claims like this need to be factually tested - no matter how plausible the philosophical argument which produced them.
"The problem is that Rand is using philosophical reasoning to arrive at factual claims. Those factual claims are very definitely the problem of science. If they are factually disconfirmed or if they prove to have no predictive value, one should discard them. And the anti-life analysis is on any reckoning a factual claim about certain kinds of behaviour."
To an extent, she certainly does. Particular her claims about abortion, which were utterly devoid of any input from science, and indeed contradictory to it.
But in the case of the "anti-life premise," we have a philosophical component and an empirical component, and I think she addresses both quite adequately. the philosophical component is that "the desire to be nothing is the desire not to be."
the empirical component is more complex. for one, you have a number of people will tell you, explicitly, that they desire to be nothing. for another, you have a lot of human behavior that cannot reasonably be explained in any way other than a naked desire to destroy life and the good. for another, you have a great deal of conspicuous rationalization around ideas whose effect is to destroy life, but whose expressed purpose is to preserve it.
her conclusion depends on both the philosophical and the empirical components, of course. as do all but the most rudimentary conclusions about the real world.
it's true that her notion of the anti-life extends far past dahmer. dahmer is just as illustration that the anti-life premise does in fact exist. the question then is whether it can exist in more subtle, rationalized forms. in gradations and mixtures. that's where the "rationalization" analysis comes in. if a person absolutely insists on an idea whose only effect is to destroy, despite the most explicit and obvious evidence that the idea is false and destructive ... what are they really after?
that's the question AS sets out to answer, I think. And while fiction certainly can't prove claims about reality, subsequent observations of reality can support a claim made in fiction:).
What errors in reasoning did Rand discuss? Let us note that she often misrepresented her opponents' positions, so one gets the impression not that they reasoned badly, but that they hardly did at all. Please provide an example of an error in reasoning where she engages a position in terms agreeable to the opponent and illuminates it. In doing so, she is usually claiming that they failed to reason, and not that the reasoning process has limits. Do you disagree that she never names this distinction? Or do you believe, as she did, that reasoning is ultimately a process without limitations?
The problem with your second claim is that the distinction between science and philosophy is largely a contrived one. At one time, they were considered contiguous because the value of experimentation had not been fully fleshed out. Even as scientific methods became known, they went hand in hand with scientific successes and were not developed apart from them. Today, any serious philosopher informs his ideas with scientific results. This is what I was alluding to when I spoke about special foundations approaches (making philosophy have veto power over science) vs general foundations (bringing of of one's current knowledge to bear on a problem without making one field more important than any other unless the context makes it reasonable to do so). When you make hard distinctions between science and philosophy that are ultimately arbitrary, you end up believing that one is impossible without the other, rather than remembering the separation is more convenient that actual. So the rules of philosophy should be tested. How theyshould be tested is open for discussion, but if one remembers that there was a time when questions answered by modern science were once the province of philosophers exclusively, then one should be more careful about arbitrary distinctions between kinds of knowledge. If you have a specific distinction in mind or an issue you want to lay out, make it. But no one should hide behind the classification of knowledge to explain why one set of methods cannot be applied to a set of problems
rand is often accused of being a master rationalizer. perhaps she was. but if she was, I think that foible may have given her a unique perspective on the nature and power of rationalization, along the lines of "takes one to know one." perhaps no one knows the power of rationalization better than a rationalizer.
Ungtss, do you make a distinction between errors in reasoning and limitations of the reasoning process? Or do you believe that reasoning has few if any limitations as a method of arriving at truth? Is it possible to reason well and arrive at the wrong answer?
"What errors in reasoning did Rand discuss? Let us note that she often misrepresented her opponents' positions, so one gets the impression not that they reasoned badly, but that they hardly did at all."
I'd say that whether or not her analysis of errors in reasoning fairly characterized her opponents, they were, nevertheless, analyses of errors in reasoning.
for instance, her "fallacy of the stolen concept." I love that. And she used it all the time, in a bunch of contexts. Whether or not her characterization of her opponents was fair, she was definitely discussing an error in reasoning. even if it was only an error committed by a straw man.
"The problem with your second claim is that the distinction between science and philosophy is largely a contrived one."
in the context of how one tests ideas, I don't think it's contrived at all. science can _only_ test things in the real world amenable to experimentation. it cannot test things upon which an experiment cannot be performed.
so to the extent it can test ideas, it certainly should. but to the extent it can't, it needs to shut up:).
"If you have a specific distinction in mind or an issue you want to lay out, make it."
okay, what can science say about man's purpose?
nothing:). because "purpose" cannot be subjected to experiment. experiment can establish how things work, but it cannot establish what things out to do. that takes philosophy:).
"But no one should hide behind the classification of knowledge to explain why one set of methods cannot be applied to a set of problems"
I wouldn't describe it as "hiding behind" such a classification as point out that different areas of knowledge are subject to evaluation by different methods. For instance, you cannot measure temperature with a ruler. That's not an arbitrary distinction. It's an inescapable limitation of rulers:).
"Ungtss, do you make a distinction between errors in reasoning and limitations of the reasoning process? Or do you believe that reasoning has few if any limitations as a method of arriving at truth? Is it possible to reason well and arrive at the wrong answer?"
Depends what we mean by "limitations on the reasoning process." I found the arguments on this point in Peikoff's "Objectivism" to be particularly powerful on this point. Reasoning is what _we do_. The fact that we do things in a particular way, and not some other way we're incapable of, is not a "limitation" on our reason. it's the "nature" of our reason.
Thus the fact that i'm not omniscient is not a "limitation" on my reason. i'm a human. I think in a particular, non-omniscient way. It's all I can do:). Why should I compare myself to some non-existent entity that thinks in a completely different way, and find myself coming up short:)?
in that context, the "error" in reasoning is trying to reason in a way that contradicts your nature:). for instance, it would be an "error" to pretend i'm omniscient:). because i'm not:).
Laj:
>The problem with your second claim is that the distinction between science and philosophy is largely a contrived one.
While Rand talks this distinction up, she never actually makes a serious attempt to divide science and philosophy. She merely makes vague handwaving distinctions whenever a topic looms where you might have to actually have some factual information and labels it "science".
In fact, if you try to deduce from Rand's writing what New Intellectual philosophers actually will do all day in the coming Objectitopia, it will be 1) standing round reiterating three axioms and 2) informing people like scientists and economists the "proper" meanings of words. So awesome...!
Even Popper, who tried the hardest of anyone to find a sharp distinction ultimately failed, his falsifiability criterion being destroyed by his pupil, Bill Bartley. But it was one step back, two steps forward as of course it turned out aiming at falsifiability is a great way of improving human thought outside of what are traditionally thought of sciences.
I'm not sure why "experiment" fails as a demarcation.
Warming to my topic, here's Rand on philosophy:
Rand:" The grandeur, the reverence, the exalted purity, the austere dedication to the pursuit of truth, which are commonly associated with religion, should properly belong to the field of philosophy."
So it's the philosophers that get all the prestige, right? Funny that a philosopher would say that...;-)
Now here's Rand on science:
"It is philosophy that defines and establishes the epistemological criteria to guide human knowledge in general and specific sciences in particular."
Now this is a little subtle, but notice the basically authoritarian turn here. Philosophy - and by extension philosophers - are here to set the rules for everyone else. Funny - I thought we were all fallible humans, here in pursuit of truth together by various means. But no. One group has the rules of knowledge, everyone else must follow them. Those cats down in the lab can't look at the Philosopher King.
This of course stands in the greatest possible contrast to, say, the Popperian vision, where through a tradition of mutual criticism from all areas using commonly agreed tools of enquiry we discover each others' errors, and thus slowly progress.
If you are looking for the seeds of Objectivism's esoteric authoritarianism, as opposed to its exoteric denial of such, I suggest this is a good place to start.
"Now this is a little subtle, but notice the basically authoritarian turn here. Philosophy - and by extension philosophers - are here to set the rules for everyone else."
I disagree with the extension to exclusively "philosophers." One of her fundamental tenets is that everyone has a philosophy, the only question is whether it's a deliberate one or an ad hoc one. That would include scientists. Thus the philosophy of a scientist determines the rules of his science.
Nothing in that line of reasoning remotely hints that only professional philosophers can do philosophy. quite the contrary, to her, we're all philosophers whether we like it or not. out only choice is whether or not we want to be good at it.
ungtss:
>I disagree with the extension to exclusively "philosophers."
Oh, really?
Rand:"The professional intellectual is the field agent of the army whose commander-in-chief is the philosopher. The intellectual carries the application of philosophical principles to every field of human endeavor. He sets a society’s course by transmitting ideas from the “ivory tower” of the philosopher to the university professor—to the writer—to the artist—to the newspaperman—to the politician—to the movie maker—to the night-club singer—to the man in the street."
Note the authoritarian, even Great Helmsman-like role the philosopher takes here. Sure, there is vague hand-waving elsewhere about "reality" being the final "authority" but this is an exoteric magic asterisk. What's really going on here is a vision of power; of supreme authority, of "commander in chief" ultimately setting the course of society. And of course, whoever is the ultimate philosopher is naturally the ultimate authority....
Consider it well when pondering the trajectory of the Objectivist movement to date.
Now now, it can be made clear that she's not using "commander in chief" in the sort of coercive, authoritarian manner you're describing by looking at another quote from the same work:
"The professional businessman is the field agent of the army whose lieutenant-commander-in-chief is the scientist. The businessman carries scientific discoveries from the laboratory of the inventor to industrial plants, and transforms them into material products that fill men’s physical needs and expand the comfort of men’s existence. By creating a mass market, he makes these products available to every income level of society. By using machines, he increases the productivity of human labor, thus raising labor’s economic rewards. By organizing human effort into productive enterprises, he creates employment for men of countless professions. He is the great liberator who, in the short span of a century and a half, has released men from bondage to their physical needs, has released them from the terrible drudgery of an eighteen-hour workday of manual labor for their barest subsistence, has released them from famines, from pestilences, from the stagnant hopelessness and terror in which most of mankind had lived in all the pre-capitalist centuries—and in which most of it still lives, in non-capitalist countries."
Of course the scientist is not coercive. He's envisioned as a provider of raw materials which is then applied. Or do you really think she thought scientists should be able to coercively control businessmen in an authoritarian sense:)?
I report, you decide...;-)
fair enough:)
Depends what we mean by "limitations on the reasoning process." I found the arguments on this point in Peikoff's "Objectivism" to be particularly powerful on this point. Reasoning is what _we do_. The fact that we do things in a particular way, and not some other way we're incapable of, is not a "limitation" on our reason. it's the "nature" of our reason.
So how does this argument address the fact that reasoning can be done perfectly and still fall into error on the question of whether the conclusion is true when applied to the real world or not? And is this not the ultimate point of reasoning?
Being able to use a process perfectly and not arrive at the desired end result is a limitation of that process, even if it is the nature of that process. Peikoff can dance around it all he wants, but I think it is much better to deal with the problem head on and look at what possible implications of that problem are.
okay, what can science say about man's purpose?
nothing:). because "purpose" cannot be subjected to experiment. experiment can establish how things work, but it cannot establish what things out to do. that takes philosophy:).
Science says a great deal about man's purpose every day, either with the theory of evolution talking about what the human body evolved to do, or when psychology talks about human motivation and what drives it, or when people do studies on what makes people happy and how that might influence your choice of what do do to achieve happiness.
So what made you believe that science has nothing to say about man's purpose? Didn't Rand use scientific arguments based on observing organisms in her essay on Objectivist ethics to derive the correct purpose for man?
I'm not sure why "experiment" fails as a demarcation.
A distinction should be made between problems which we believe are in principle open to scientific analysis but would be impractical to solve using this method, and problems we believe can never be solved with this method. There is also the issue of whether a problem is being framed in a way that allows science to address it, but that would take me too far off field.
You are using the existence of the second type of problem (cannot be solved by science) as an excuse to shove problems you do not have the resources to solve into the first kind of problem (impractical to be solved by science). I argue that by failing to make the distinction between these two kinds of questions, Rand made the same mistake fairly often, though to be fair to her, cognitive science has taken major leaps since her time.
I do not consider the question of whether some/many human beings are motivated by the "anti-life premise" to be the second kind of problem.
Is there an empirical answer to whether people are motivated by the "anti-life premise" or not? Yes.
Can we perform a simple scientific experiment to confirm this? Unlikely.
Does that mean that the question is now purely the province of rational speculation? No.
It is an empirical problem which we find impractical to investigate but which could be in-principle be investigated.
This is very different from many of the questions which purportedly cannot be solved by the scientific method (I say purportedly because the resistance to the scientific method being used to solve such problems could as much be a limitation of one's imagination as it could be a function of how the problem is framed).
"Didn't Rand use scientific arguments based on observing organisms in her essay on Objectivist ethics to derive the correct purpose for man?"
Yeah, that's what I used to think. It isn't so.
Yes, there's talk of organisms, pleasure/pain, physical function - but significantly, there's one biological concept she never talks about: evolution.
For anyone familiar with her work, that isn't surprising. After all, "successful" adaptations in evolutionary terms are the ones which result in the greatest number of descendants. That's how we ended up with upright posture, a large brain and opposable thumbs. And by the way, that large brain - which Rand characterizes as "man's basic tool of survival" - developed after the upright posture and opposable thumbs and probably wouldn't have happened without them.
This is a scientific account that fits very awkwardly with the Objectivist narrative. First of all, I don't think it's being altogether flippant to point out that Objectivist heroes don't seem interested in producing many descendants.
But most importantly, we became the creatures we are through a specific process, shaped over time by many circumstances that could easily have been different. I have yet to see any Objectivists who can explain - in detail - how these evolutionary forces are supposed to have come up with tabula rasa and a sovereign intellect unencumbered by any behavioural drivers. There's a lot of talk here about man's mind - and a lot less talk about the brain and how we got the one we have.
Not too surprisingly, Branden reports that Rand once made a dismissive reference to evolution as "just a theory". I've always suspected that she was something of a closet Lamarckian, but too smart to admit it: treasuring the notion that the best human characteristics somehow must have come about by the heroic exercise of will.
Regardless of whether that speculation is true, it's certainly the case that talk of evolutionary development has no place whatever in Objectivist ethics - no matter how much surface patter you get about survival and organisms.
“So how does this argument address the fact that reasoning can be done perfectly and still fall into error on the question of whether the conclusion is true when applied to the real world or not? And is this not the ultimate point of reasoning?”
Ooh ooh, this is my favorite part:). As humans, the sort of absolutely accurate answer this is describing is not how we think about things:), nor how we deal with things. It’s an irrelevant, impracticable ideal not for human use:).
As humans, we deal with things on the basis of partial knowledge with degrees of accuracy. Thus when a child says “this rock is solid” and the physicist says “this rock is mostly empty space,” both are right within a particular context of perception and knowledge. The child is simply describing the rock from a different vantage point. And from within that vantage point, the child is right.
From the human standpoint “processing perfectly” – that is, processing things we don’t and can’t know, or which our brains cannot absorb, is not a useful definition of “right.” “right,” to us, is right as humans, which means right within the context of our knowledge.
“Science says a great deal about man's purpose every day, either with the theory of evolution talking about what the human body evolved to do, or when psychology talks about human motivation and what drives it, or when people do studies on what makes people happy and how that might influence your choice of what do do to achieve happiness.”
Ah, an ambiguity. By “purpose” I meant not what we are, but what we ought to do with ourselves?
“Didn't Rand use scientific arguments based on observing organisms in her essay on Objectivist ethics to derive the correct purpose for man?”
She used scientific observations, but ultimately she had to go through the lens of philosophy to get to an “ought.”
“A distinction should be made between problems which we believe are in principle open to scientific analysis but would be impractical to solve using this method, and problems we believe can never be solved with this method.”
See, this is philosophy, not science:). And I don’t think it stands up to scrutiny. Who are we to say what tools the future will bring? If you’d asked a scientist 100 years ago if we could investigate the things we can investigate today, do you think he would know:)? Why on Earth are these scientists claiming things as “Science” based solely on their speculations about what might somebody come within the realm of science?
I think a much better demarcation recognizes that the demarcation moves over time, as our abilities to observe improve. What was “metaphysics” 100 years ago becomes science when we acquire the tools to examine it.
G, your observations about objectivism and evolution are greatly appreciated, and in fact i agree with them. do you happen to remember where this branden/rand/evolution anecdote can be found?
"G, your observations about objectivism and evolution are greatly appreciated, and in fact i agree with them. do you happen to remember where this branden/rand/evolution anecdote can be found?"
It's part of Branden's essay on "The Benefits and Hazards of the Philosophy of Ayn Rand." Essential reading.
In rereading the Branden piece, I see that he actually quotes Rand as saying that evolution is "only a hypothesis." - rather than "just a theory", as I had remembered it.
Before 1968, the end date of Branden's time with Rand, any biologist would have sharply rejected the characterization of evolution as a mere hypothesis. After several decades research into bio-informatics, any biologist would consign the same statement to the lunatic fringe if it were uttered today. . .
thanks dude -- i'll check it out.
Let's try again. You missed bother point of every single question. A child making a judgment that a rock is solid and tosses it around is not falling into error. A child making a judgment that there is warm water in a tub, sticks his hand into it and gets scarred is falling into error. We already know that human beings are not omniscient. The real issue is whether that, amongst other important facts, has implications for how we should view reasoning and whether we can reason properly, believe we are doing so and still make errors. Do you believe it is possible to reason properly within a a context and still have your conclusion be not true? Why or why not?
"A child making a judgment that there is warm water in a tub, sticks his hand into it and gets scarred is falling into error."
Well, to figure out what the error is, you have to consider what he knew and what he checked. I learned early on that they way to check bathwater temperature is to quickly swipe your finger into it so you can get a sense of how hot it is without burning yourself. a person who fails to do this -- who instead plunges his whole hand into water of unknown temperature -- is not reasoning properly, because he is assuming the water is a safe temperature under circumstances where that is not clear, and acting not to test a hypothesis, but on the assumption -- without evidence -- that his hypothesis is true.
that's not to say he's a horrible person or whatever. but it's clearly a mistake. if you don't know how hot water is, you test before you put yourself at risk. failing to do that is an error.
so in answer to your question in the last sentence, "no, I don't. because part of reasoning correctly is limiting your conclusions to those for which you have a solid basis for belief. if you assume things without evidence, that's not proper reasoning."
Your response to my question on science is odd given that Rand believed that she solved the "is-ought" distinction. Do you believe she didn't solve it?
Moreover, science informs a lot of what we ought to do. Sometimes, saying that someone ought to do something assumes that the person can do same. And reviewing what others have done to understand what you should do is a scientific approach to a problem. The is-ought distinction only works if you define science as dealing exclusively in "is" and never in "oughts " and that is hard to consistently maintain when studying purpose driven animals in biology and psychology, and it is harder to maintain in a field whose purpose is to arrive at truth.
Finally, philosophy strictly speaking, does not tell you what you ought to do either. Values are taken as a given input on both science and philosophy. It's just that arguments have remained a philosophic field which give debating values a better reputation in philosophy. But usually, debased don't tell you your values but just expose them.
You're digging a bigger whole for yourself, but you are also getting closer to the real problem. What does it mean to assume things without evidence? We are finally getting somewhere. How do you know you are assuming things without evidence? And if you assume things with evidence, what is your guarantee that the evidence doesn't change in a way you did not expect?
Remember that these are issues when you measure reasoning against the standard of whether the conclusion is true in the real world or not or whether the conclusion survives testing, and they tend not to be issues when engaging in confirmation biased speculation or untested thought.
“Your response to my question on science is odd given that Rand believed that she solved the "is-ought" distinction. Do you believe she didn't solve it?”
Well, “solved” might be an overstatement, but she certainly gave some solid leads to potential solutions. But her leads were in the context of philosophy, not science. They are reasoned arguments drawing a link between is and ought, not scientific observations:).
“Moreover, science informs a lot of what we ought to do. Sometimes, saying that someone ought to do something assumes that the person can do same. And reviewing what others have done to understand what you should do is a scientific approach to a problem.”
It certainly provides us with raw material for “ought,” but it can’t get us all the way there. For instance, science can tell you what a bullet will do to a body, but it won’t tell you whether a person ought to be shot. And science can tell you what others have done, but it can’t tell you what you ought to do in response.
“Values are taken as a given input on both science and philosophy.”
I don’t know that that’s correct. I perceive my values as intimately intertwined in my philosophy. In fact, as my philosophy has changed, my values have changed dramatically. How is it that you believe values are given input for philosophy?
“What does it mean to assume things without evidence?”
Well, in the context of bathtub water, it means thinking the water is a particular temperature without having some good reason to know what the temperature is. Steam is a clue. Touching it briefly is a clue. How long it’s been there is a clue. Whether it’s inside a house or out by itself is a clue. Whether somebody’s in it is a clue. All clues. But if you ignore all those clues and simply assume an answer, you’re assuming without evidence.
“And if you assume things with evidence, what is your guarantee that the evidence doesn't change in a way you did not expect?”
Well, one ought not assume that the evidence will not change:).
“Remember that these are issues when you measure reasoning against the standard of whether the conclusion is true in the real world or not or whether the conclusion survives testing,”
I can agree with that:).
Finally, while I agree that as tools for investigation get better, some problems become solvable for science, I disagree that it is about technology. It is about the nature of the problem.
Now I have argued that I do not believe the distinction between science and philosophy a real one so the onus is not on me to defend the distinction. My point here is that if there is a fact of the matter, there is a fact of the matter. If this fact refers to a state of affairs that currently exists, it can be analyzed. You cannot hide behind the claim that because you cannot test the "anti life" claims in a rigorous way that you then have license to advance such speculation as being seriously true. People have lodged several objections and the best you can do is tell them to you think it is true because it makes sense to you. At the very least, isn't it responsible to moderate the conclusion to the degree of evidence available for it?
“My point here is that if there is a fact of the matter, there is a fact of the matter. If this fact refers to a state of affairs that currently exists, it can be analyzed.”
I agree with that, but I don’t agree that every fact of the matter can be analyzed by scientific tools. Some problems can’t be tested in a lab. I also don’t agree with calling things “science” if somebody thinks they could be tested “in principle,” notwithstanding the fact that nobody can – or has – yet.
“have lodged several objections and the best you can do is tell them to you think it is true because it makes sense to you.”
Actually I’ve stated exactly the methodology for testing this hypothesis. Watch people’s actions, infer motives from their actions, and test your hypothetical motive against future actions.
Ungtss, do you considered how many stars there ate in the sky or the number of people in love right today to be philosophy problems or science problems? The point is that there is an empirical quality to the problem. Using your approach, these are not scientific problems. Using mine, they are, even if no line of sight solution can be implemented by scientists.
I find your prescription too vague and not designed to avoid bias. How do we tell if someone is motivated by simple jealousy or greed rather than an anti-life premise? And if you accused someone of being anti-life and the person denied it or claimed he was only against a particular kind of life, does he fail or pass?
All in all, I find your justification pretty rudimentary. Is it fair to say that your hypothesis is hardly beyond that stage in the verification process?
“Ungtss, do you considered how many stars there ate in the sky or the number of people in love right today to be philosophy problems or science problems?”
I don’t think you can categorize a problem as “scientific” or “unscientific” until you have some means to test it experimentally. Before that time, it’s simply a “problem.” Neither scientific nor unscientific.
This is because Science _is_ a particular methodology. It’s misleading to categorize the problem as being associated with the methodology until you can bring the methodology to bear on it. Of course, once you have some means of testing the problem, then it becomes a problem of science.
Your approach seems to me to be an effort to conflate “science” with “materialism.” In other words, because “the number of stars” deals only with a material question, then it is supposed to be “scientific.” I don’t think that’s right. Science, again, is a set of tools. Materialistic questions that science cannot answer are not science questions. They might be, someday. But before science gets there, they’re just “questions.”
Consider, for example, the question of God. Is this a scientific question? It might be a science question if one day God showed up and said “I’m here!” It also might be a science question if we comprehensively explored every quadrant of the universe and found no god anywhere. But for now, it’s a philosophy question: and the question is one of parsimony. Is it parsimonious to posit the existence of a being with these characteristics? Good philosophy says no. Science has nothing to say. Because it doesn’t have the tools yet.
Of course, as a political matter, as an unsavory scientist, I would want to lay claim to all questions involving material objects whatsoever, whether or not I have the ability to test them. And that’s precisely what’s happening.
“I find your prescription too vague and not designed to avoid bias. How do we tell if someone is motivated by simple jealousy or greed rather than an anti-life premise? And if you accused someone of being anti-life and the person denied it or claimed he was only against a particular kind of life, does he fail or pass? “
By continuing to test your hypothesis. For instance, under circumstances where the person must choose between destruction and greed, what does he do?
“Is it fair to say that your hypothesis is hardly beyond that stage in the verification process?”
With regard to most people, I don’t even have a hypothesis. But with regard to certain people I know far better than I wish I did, it’s as close to absolute certainty as I can imagine possible:).
I think you clearly can call a problem scientific of scientific methods can be applied in principle. In fact, even if there was no means to analyze a specific cause of death, no one would call it a philosophy problem - it would be an unsolved science problem. And I knew you would raise an objection to my use of stars which wad why I also mentioned the number of people in love, which is similar to the "anti-life" premise problem. One would have to be clear on what characterises a person in love for the purpose of the experiment, as well as what disqualifies a person. Bit I do agree with you that how you frame the problem plays a big role in how you think it may or may not be solved.
To each his own - I am sure that were you forced to make your anti-life premise claims more objective, you would be more than up to the task. Have the individuals you speak of killed anyone? Are they in jail? Just curious how high or low the bar is to become a member of the Ungtss Anti Life gang...
“In fact, even if there was no means to analyze a specific cause of death, no one would call it a philosophy problem - it would be an unsolved science problem.”
Why could it not be a history problem? Say you can’t figure it out through autopsy, but turns out there was a hidden video on an ATM machine across the street and you can see what happened? Science would have nothing to say. History would:).
“Have the individuals you speak of killed anyone? Are they in jail? Just curious how high or low the bar is to become a member of the Ungtss Anti Life gang...”
Haha and a hell of a gang it is:). Killings, yes, jail yes, death yes, also in one case a principal lost his license for threatening my brother with a gun when my brother didn’t play basketball as well as he might have liked:). But also much more subtlety – for instance, a girl who was engaged and simultaneously having an affair, then continued the affair after the marriage, then told both her husband and her employer about it. In the full context (none of which is particularly pertinent here) there is simply no explanation other than a desire to destroy two men’s lives for no reason:).
I wouldn't call them anti-life, but that doesn't make them nice people. Stay thirsty, my friend!
i don't always hate life, but when i do, I go out with style:). peace:).
Ungtss,
I think you are seeking and expecting to find a way to reliably check your reasoning all by yourself, with no need for others to be involved. Objectivists seem to think they can do this.
They are wrong. We all are susceptable to confirmation bias and other similar distortions. There is no discipline which will completely protect us from this."Check your premises." is not sufficient. You have to be aware of and on the lookout for your biases. And others can often see when you have a blind spot. You should listen to them on this.
Objectivism holds up an ideal of complete self reliance in your reasoning which will only get you into difficulties. They are not the only offenders. You have to learn to know when someone else knows more than you do about a subject and either take their advice or learn enough yourself. Objectivists are not the only or the worst offenders but there are too many who think that a small amount of study of a subject lets them know more than someone who has studied that subject for decades.
There are two interesting issues mixed in there – a) a willingness to absorb and consider another person’s information, perspectives, opinion, etc, and judge for yourself; and b) a willingness to substitute somebody else’s judgment for your own.
As to A, i actually think I’m pretty good at listening to people with whom I don’t agree:). Otherwise, why would I be here? I certainly agree that one can gain a lot of insight from listening to others, because others often have a lot of information and perspective you wouldn’t otherwise have access to.
But as to B (and I’m not sure if you meant this but it’s worth addressing anyway), I don’t think it’s remotely helpful to let others think for you. Primarily because they’re subject to confirmation bias too, as is my willingness to let them think for me. You simply can’t bypass the responsibility of thinking for yourself. You can only be more or less responsible about how you do it.
I was thinking of the necessity of recognizing when someone else knows more than you. When that is the case and your impression from the limited knowledge at your disposal is different from theirs then either you should learn enough to understand what is behind their judgment or you go along with it. In economics learn enough to understand them rather thn believe what fits in with ideology. Do the same in science. Surely you defer to your physician's judgment. Or to a tratesman's in matters concerning their trade. You should know when someone knows more than you.
"I was thinking of the necessity of recognizing when someone else knows more than you."
I run across this quite often, and it doesn't make much sense to me, and I'll tell you why.
How am I to determine whether a person in fact knows more than me before I learn what he knows? For instance, if my doctor diagnoses me with X, how am I to trust his judgment unless I know the basis for his judgment? And once I know the basis of his judgment, can't I go away and learn what he's talking about, so I know as much as he knows about that particular issue?
That's what I do. I don't "defer" to a doctor's judgment. I learn what it is -- learn the relevant facts and his analysis of the facts. But at that point, we both know what he's talking about in that context.
What this "recognize when other people know more than you" really comes down to is an appeal to title and position. In other words, I'm supposed to trust the doctor not because he can explain to me what's happening to me, and why he's drawn the conclusions he's drawn, but because he has an MD and I don't. Regardless of what he actually knows about the issues that are actually affecting me.
A lot of professionals of course treat patients and clients that way. But I don't. And I won't be treated that way, either.
ungtss,
You can learn the basis of an expert's judgment. Sometimes however it will take more time and effort than you can afford. When that is the case the logical action is to defer to their judgment.
The best example of Objectivists' ignoring experts is in economics. They support the conclusions of the Austrian School of Economics which is very much a superseded economic approach. They do so, not because they have closely studied and rejected more modern economic approaches, but because its conclusions are congenial to their ideology and their a priori style of reasoning.
"Sometimes however it will take more time and effort than you can afford. When that is the case the logical action is to defer to their judgment."
And in the case of my economic views, I have all the time and effort in the world, because absolutely nothing hinges on my views, because nobody in power gives a damn what I think:).
"The best example of Objectivists' ignoring experts is in economics. They support the conclusions of the Austrian School of Economics which is very much a superseded economic approach. They do so, not because they have closely studied and rejected more modern economic approaches, but because its conclusions are congenial to their ideology and their a priori style of reasoning."
I don't know that the Austrian school is superceded -- it was never a particularly popular school, because it is so directly opposed to the political agendas of the power elite:). As to whether "Objectivists" adopt it without understanding it, I gotta tell you, one of my degrees is in economics, so there are at least some exceptions to your claim ... do you have any statistical evidence that objectivists are more ignorant of economics than the average joe? because i'd say even knowing what the Austrian school _is_ easily puts a person in the top 5% of people, as far as knowledge of economics goes:).
Ungtss,
what I said was that I thank most Objectivists adopt it without understanding or really carefully looking at other economic approaches or criticsms of it. Ironically it is the economic approach that I understand best and have read most of. What I disagree with in it is the avoidance of empiricism, the attempt to derive explanations of economic behaviour a prori from a subset of human motivations, not looking at all relevant motivations and trying to derive behaviour of groups solely from the behaviour of individuals.
I don't disagree with your opinion that those things are bad ideas. What I am not sure about is the idea that Objectivists are somehow more prone to this and other groups. I, for instance am an objectivist, and have read human action multiple times, as well as Hayek's better-known works. I have also read Rands marginalia and comments on both, and noted that she had deep deep criticisms for both of them on many scores. So as far as reading criticisms of Hayek and von mises, you don't have to go any further than rand herself. But as far as the economics itself, I must say I'm very well read in the many points of view that oppose the Austrian school. In fact the Austrian school was never mentioned once throughout my economics education, and I did not discover it until after I graduated. At which time all of the criticisms that have been growing in my mind about the neoclassical synthesis with Keynesianism came into focus. In particular the impression that grew throughout my years in school that macroeconomics was a farce. Suddenly all of that made sense. So as a living counterexample to your claim that Objectivists adopt the Austrian school of economics without learning about other schools economics, I can't help but wonder what's your evidence is that I don't exist:).
I was speaking of general tendencies and my impressions, not universal rules. My criticisms of the Austrian School come from reading Hayek and von Mises and seeing what they omit or gloss over.
That's what I'm curious about, the basis for his general impressions. I don't know anybody who would call themselves an objectivist except myself. But everyone here seems to agree they're overwhelmingly a bunch of cranks.
I agree, Hayek and Von mises leave much to be improved upon:).
Ungtss,
I do not see that anti-life is necessary to explain evil actions. I think you are looking in the wrong place.. You are looking at ultimate motivations. I think evil is a failure of control over necessary but potentially dangerous drives. And the failure comes from a lack of empathy or lack of sense of proportion or something with similar effects. I can be from an evasion but not necessarily. A sociopath is acting rationally but, lacking empathy, the non rational part of moral judgment fails.
Broadly speaking I think there are four main types of motivation for evil behaviour.
The first, and rarest, is sadism, joy in hurting. The question is how this is acquired and is there something else behind it such as the desire to have an effect on others, to be noticed?
The next is the desire for something which is not wrong to want but the desire is pursued without regard to the cost to others. A burglar wants wealth but takes the apparently easy way to get it without regard for the harm that he does.
Third is the protection of a brittle inflated self image.
The fourth is idealism without a sense of proportion.
The last two are particularly dangerous because they are insatiable. Greed ultimately has limits.
I would very strong recommend that you read Evil:Inside Human Violence and Cruelty by Roy Baumeister. This is a study of how evil forms as a sort of thoughtlessness. I think some appalling things that you struggle to understand will be plainer afterward.
Rand's idea of anti-life would I think be a type of what Baumeister calls The Myth of Pure Evil, a type of self serving explanation of actions that one finds reprehensible.
I like your list. The question is, whether two through four are derivative of one, or whether they are independent somehow. I tend to think they're derivative, and here is why.
To pursue goals without respect to the effects on people is to ignore not just effects, but people. Living people. Now why would you pretend something does not exist, except that you wish it did not exist? And why would you wish something that did not exist that you value? Ignoring people's existence reflects a wish that they did not exist.
Brittle self image is a denial of what you are in favor of what you want to think you are. Again, a replacement of what is with what isn't. Why would you plate replaced what is if you like it? A brutal self image reflects a dislike of the self.
And last, idealism is dealing with the world as though it is something other than what it is. Pretending things are and work in a way different than what they are. Again, denying what exists in favor of what does not and cannot exist.
All three of them are an effort to psychologically negate
reality with some substitute. Different aspects of reality, certainly. But still an effort to destroy what exists in one's mind.
Now if one like reality, why would one try to destroy it? If one liked other people's lives, why would one seek to negate them? If one liked oneself, why would one replace oneself with an illusion?
I think at the root of all three is the fact that you do not like others, you do not like yourself, and you do not like reality. all are watered down versions of the desire to destroy reality. Subtle. But exactly the same thing at the essence. The desire to destroy life and reality through the purely mental activity of denying its existence.
And of course the effects bear this out. Ignoring other people's existence in your actions hurt them. Acting on a misguided idealism hurts reality. Acting on a brittle self image hurts the self. In other words, not only is the motive dislike of reality, but the effect is harm to reality. That's why I think two through four are just derivative of one.
No, there are much more plausible alternative explanations. For shooting up a school or other spree killings try glory. For a terrorist bombing try a sense of victimization.. They say so themselves.
It really is unpleasant to try to get inside the head of someone who does these actions so there is a strong temptation to avoid doing so by attributing a motive that you could never possibly share. No one wants to see aspects of themselves in a monster. But they will be there.
As well seeing yourself as fighting pure evil can feel good. But this is dangerous, very dangerous. Violence can usually only be opposed by more violence. Thinking of yourself as fighting pure evil can remove restraints on your actions allowing you to do evil yourself. The worst evil is done by those who believe that they are fighting evil. The Nazis believed that they were fighting evil when they committed mass murder against groups that they saw as enemies. They saw themselves as the victims of evil.
The idea of anti life is one that has the potential to justify atrocities. It weakens barriers against evil in yourself.
Read Baumeister's book. In it he talks about the Myth of Pure Evil. This is how evil is often depicted. It has these aspects.
1.It involves the intentional infliction of harm on people. Harm is intended, not a side effect of something else.
2.The pleasure of inflicting harm is the motive.
3.The victims of evil are harmless and did nothing at all to provoke evil, not even a minor act that triggered a grossly disproportionate response.
4.Evil people are outsiders, not part of the community..
5.Evil people were always evil
6.Evil seeks chaos and the destruction of good.
7.The evil are egotistical.
8.The evil are impulsive.
Baumeister points out that only the last two pints are generally true. The evil usually see themselves as the victims of evil and believe that they are justified.
You are trying to defend one of Rand's worse ideas. There is no need to invoke sadism or similar to explain greed, egotism or obsession, the roots of the last three motives that I gave. You just need a failure of control. Good can be the engine of evil. They are not directly opposed. Evil is in the means, not the ends. Good is matter of ends.
"No, there are much more plausible alternative explanations. For shooting up a school or other spree killings try glory. For a terrorist bombing try a sense of victimization.. They say so themselves."
In basketball, there's a rule of thumb in playing defense: when you're defending someone, you don't watch his face. you watch his chest. he can fake you out with his face, his eyes, and his mouth. but he can't fake you out with his chest. wherever his chest is going, he's going.
in my experience with evil people, the most naive thing you could possibly do is take their word for their motives:). they'll lie to you:). to understand motives, you have to watch action. because their actions will always be pointed at their goal.
i won't argue with you about whether hatred of life and reality is the true motive of evil -- I'll only tell you that my experience leaves no room for me to believe these western platitudes about evil being a mistake. beyond that, there's really no room for empirical debate in a forum like this, because we have no way to share each other's experiences:).
is it possible for this view to lead to evil? only if one engages in the same sort of evil one is defining as evil:). hypocrisy is always a risk in any moral framework, but it's not one that can be blamed on the values one chooses to be hypocritical about:).
http://www.basketball-tips-and-training.com/basketball-defense.html
Watch Opponents' Chest
When playing defense in basketball, you of course want to follow the above of the defensive basketball tips to not be the reactor. Sometimes you can't avoid it, though. You can, however, anticipate the offensive player's next move by watching their chest.
A player can fake a number of different ways, but their chest will always show where they're going next. They can make a jab step with their foot one way and go another way, fake a shot with their head and shoulders, or fake a pass with their hands, arms, and shoulders. The one thing that will not be used to fake will be the chest. Focus on this and help prevent being faked out by other body parts.
Are you seeing what you gain from believing in anti-life motivations? Are you on the lookout for those biases?
Lieing is an effort and can't be kept up all the time. Rationalizing can and the evil will be rationalizing most of the time. Especially the idealistic evil, they are telling you how they see things. Do not seek explanations that allow you to just dimiss their motivations, as anti-life does.
Understand that being a victim of evil does not help you understand evil. In fact it can hinder. You are very stronly tempted to find the explanation that helps you feel best.
And how do sociopaths fit into an ant-life explanation. They are the most obvious case of a defective control mechanism. What need is there for an anti-life explanation there. Callousness and egotism are quite sufficient.
“Are you seeing what you gain from believing in anti-life motivations? Are you on the lookout for those biases?”
Now that’s a fair question. Hadn’t really thought about it. What do you think I gain from it? What biases do you see?
“Lieing is an effort and can't be kept up all the time. Rationalizing can and the evil will be rationalizing most of the time. Especially the idealistic evil, they are telling you how they see things. Do not seek explanations that allow you to just dimiss their motivations, as anti-life does.”
Fair enough – but even in the case of rationalizing, what they’re saying does not capture their true motive. That’s what rationalizing is:). But if you ignore the rationalizing, and focus on the goal of their action, I think you’ve got your best shot:).
"What need is there for an anti-life explanation there. "
I have sociopaths in my family:). One of them fraudulently induced a girl to marry him so he could get better military housing. She didn't know they were married for 18 months. When she found out, she stabbed him in the leg.
another person in my family forcibly sodomized his landlady while she was on the phone. the whole thing was recorded and played at trial.
“How am I to determine whether a person in fact knows more than me before I learn what he knows? And once I know the basis of his judgment, can't I go away and learn what he's talking about, so I know as much as he knows about that particular issue?”
Unless it’s a very, very specific point that an expert is making, can you know “as much as he knows about that particular issue” by going away and checking a few things out? The answer: probably not.
As a preliminary, let me stress that I don’t take experts on faith – whether it be a doctor, a lawyer or a plumber. You have to ask questions, to challenge.
However, it’s a gross oversimplification to demand that the expert, in a complex case, should lay out all his evidence – which a layman can then check on wikipedia or at his local library.
The first point to note is that any expert talking to a layman is not giving the same rationale he would give to a fellow professional. He is presenting the evidence in a manner and with a level of detail that he guesses to be appropriate to his audience. Within that context, his explanation may be perfectly valid and helpful – but that doesn’t mean that it forms a basis to go away and end up knowing as much as he knows about that issue. Reading a Stephen Hawking popularization does not mean that you are in any position to debate physics.
The second point is weighting. There might be a half-dozen factors that go into something like a legal opinion. Which are the most important? Which are likely to carry the most impact with the judge who hears the case? When you consult a doctor or a lawyer, you’re not counting simply on the reasons he presents to you – you’re also hoping that his knowledge and experience will give the right weight to every factor that went into his opinion. Again, this is the kind of thing that a layman can’t really second guess in a useful way.
Does that mean that one should submit helplessly to expert opinions? Of course not. But neither are you going to help yourself by asking a few questions, boning up on the issue – and then debating medicine with a doctor or law with a lawyer. Rather, one should be aligning the expert’s opinions with one’s own priorities. How much will this cost? What are the chances of success? What are the consequences of failure?
If the answers you’re getting don’t satisfy you, it’s far more sensible to get an opinion from a different professional. It’s always easier to compare two different professional views than to try, with a limited knowledge base, to develop a view of your own. And it’s also far more likely to result in an intelligent decision.
"Does that mean that one should submit helplessly to expert opinions? Of course not. But neither are you going to help yourself by asking a few questions, boning up on the issue – and then debating medicine with a doctor or law with a lawyer."
On the contrary, I specifically ask my clients to argue with me:). You'd be surprised how many valuable common sense and perspective non-experts have that experts lack. I also saved my daughter's life by arguing with a nurse that was convinced the meter was saying one thing, when it was saying something else. the fourth time i went in and argued with them, they got a second doctor to have a look. turned out she had her umbilical wrapped around her neck three times and each contraction was strangling her. experts my ass, they almost killed my kid.
i saw the pulse and blood pressure dropping with each contraction. she was convinced it was just the contacts losing contact with my wife's skin. "no," i said, "i'm watching the damn meter and it's showing pulse and blood pressure dropping _before_ the meter is losing contact with her skin.
insert patronizing glare only an "expert" can muster. effing morons.
I'm very glad that I don't have anyone in my family like some of yours. I'd want to distance myself from them as much as possible too. I can see why ideas such as anti-life motivations would be so tempting for you as an explanation of your relatives' wrong doing.
But it's still a temptation that you should resist. From your description the main difference is that you have self control and empathy and they don't.
You have and cannot give me enough information to know for sure whether your assessment that some of their motives were ultimately sadistic is right or wrong. The case of the fraudulent marriage looks like a case of instrumental evil, evil done to gain some advantage. I see no reason to see any sadism in it, just greed and thoughtlessness. The second one could be sadism or instrumental evil. But even if they were sadism that does not give you a good idea of how common it is. It could be you thinking it to be more common than it is because it is what you have experienced. But small samples are not reliable.
“To pursue goals without respect to the effects on people is to ignore not just effects, but people. Living people. Now why would you pretend something does not exist, except that you wish it did not exist? And why would you wish something that did not exist that you value? Ignoring people's existence reflects a wish that they did not exist. “
There is some question begging here. You are saying that ignoring someone's suffering is pretending that they do not exist. It is not. It is simply not caring about their suffering. A want of empathy.
“Brittle self image is a denial of what you are in favor of what you want to think you are. Again, a replacement of what is with what isn't. Why would you plate replaced what is if you like it? A brutal self image reflects a dislike of the self. “
No, it is ignorance of reality and a grandiose sense of one's self. This is so inflated that it inevitably conflicts with reality.
“And last, idealism is dealing with the world as though it is something other than what it is. Pretending things are and work in a way different than what they are. Again, denying what exists in favor of what does not and cannot exist. “
That is a fair description of idealistic evil behaviour but does nothing to establish a link with sadism.
In falling for the Myth of Pure Evil you run the risk of seeing evil where it is not, a much worse mistake than failing to see real evil.
I'm not sure whether it is a good idea to describe a person as evil rather than their actions. Some people are far more likely to fail morally than others but no one fails all the time under all circumstances. A person who does evil in one circumstance might not in another. I think you need different words for the actual wrong doing and for the character traits that predispose someone to wrong doing. I think vicious is the best word for the latter with evil as a characteristic of dome of their actions.
You have and cannot give me enough information to know for sure whether your assessment that some of their motives were ultimately sadistic is right or wrong.
"The case of the fraudulent marriage looks like a case of instrumental evil, evil done to gain some advantage."
On the surface, yes, but on closer examination, you realize that was just a rationalization:). in reality, he had a girl 7 years his junior -- 16 years old at at the time -- under his thumb and "tricked" for a year and a half. he had power.
the "dorm" story is just a cover for what he's really establishing -- a Jim Taggart/Cherryl Brook relationship, in which a sorry sack of a man can "pull one over" on someone who doesn't know any better. In which he can come home and for a few hours every day feel smart, instead of the utter moron his is.
to understand that, of course, takes a close intimate relationship:). and that's why i wouldn't try and convince you of it over a blog:). you have to know this guy for 27 years and live in the same house as him, as i do.
everything he did was targeted toward acquiring that power over her. years later, he's still doing it. he announced 3 months ago that he was deploying, and that she (and their two kids) was moving in with his mother, states away, and that she needed to get in the car. when she refused, he physically forced her in the car. when they got to the other state, she tried to escape. he trapped her vehicle in the driveway.
on the surface, you can say he just really wanted her to move in with his mother. but when you consider the context -- what he's doing, how he's doing it, to me, it's clear his prime motive is controlling her.
we assume that a person might be "shortsighted" enough to realize that marrying to move out of the dorms is a bad idea. but when you actually know these people, up close, you realize they're not short-sighted at all. they know exactly what they're doing, and why.
I see no reason to see any sadism in it, just greed and thoughtlessness. The second one could be sadism or instrumental evil. But even if they were sadism that does not give you a good idea of how common it is. It could be you thinking it to be more common than it is because it is what you have experienced. But small samples are not reliable.
it's an interesting point that i might be using the "Myth of Total Evil" to distance myself from him, psychologically. And to distance myself from the many others who harm me. Something to think about. Something I hadn't really thought about.
"There is some question begging here. You are saying that ignoring someone's suffering is pretending that they do not exist. It is not. It is simply not caring about their suffering. A want of empathy."
I don't see any substantive difference between "ignoring" and "not caring." the only possible motive for ignoring i can think of is not caring. if i hit a kid with my car and see him dying in the street in the middle of nowhere, and i walk away, my act of ignoring him betrays the fact of my not caring about some portion of the the effects of my actions.
An honest, empathic person doesn't ignore or not care about it. He sees it, smells it, lives it, knows it. That suffering he caused is a real part of his universe, just as the rain or a sunset or the rate of acceleration due to gravity. It can't _not_ be cared about. Because it's part of reality. A reality you created through your actions.
To choose my destination (say a baseball game) over taking the steps necessary to help the person i hit with the car, is to choose a ballgame over human life. that necessarily entails not valuing the life. it's simply more subtle than sadism -- instead of completely disvaluing the life, you're simply valuing it less than something superficial and petty. that spoonful of sugar helps the medicine go down.
“insert patronizing glare only an "expert" can muster. effing morons.”
Wow. A little less anger would be nice.
Sure, professionals make mistakes. And if you don’t challenge them in cases like that, the result can be horrendous. I could trot out my own anecdotes on the subject, some also involving the life or well-being of my family. Everybody can. Honest.
I think we’re talking about two different scenarios here. I was discussing complex cases where there are multiple factors going into a professional opinion. In such cases, I am just not going to be able to take a time out, then “go away and learn what he's talking about, so I know as much as he knows about that particular issue”. As I’ve already indicated, I think that’s only possible if it’s a narrow issue indeed.
The case you cite – a catastrophic drop in blood pressure and pulse rate – isn’t like that at all. You didn’t need to “go away and learn” anything. All you had to do was look at the monitor – which contradicted the nonsense you were getting. You rightly challenged that nurse. Note that the matter was resolved via a second professional opinion. Thank God.
In the real life cases, I don’t think there’s much difference between the actions either of us would take. The difference, I think, lies in the generalizations such incidents lead each of us to make about professional opinions. I feel no need to know as much as a professional knows about a particular issue. But I also don’t have any problem in speaking up loudly when something doesn’t pass the smell test.
"In the real life cases, I don’t think there’s much difference between the actions either of us would take. The difference, I think, lies in the generalizations such incidents lead each of us to make about professional opinions. "
Then we agree when it counts:). And I don't mean to say that i discount all professional opinions -- only that i don't rely on them to the exclusion of my own reasoning. Precisely because they do make mistakes, and I'm smart enough to understand anything they're smart enough to understand, if given the information. So i demand the information.
My "effing morons" refers not to her knowledge, but to her patronizing glare. A smart professional knows he or she is going to make mistakes, and treasures the existence of additional eyes and minds on the problems. Stupid professionals treat their clients like car or truck engines. "Just sit there, shut up, and let me fix you." My anger is directed and professionals who treat human beings like that.
so I thought about this "total evil myth" a little bit, and (unsurprisingly?:) I don't think i'm falling into it. The reason is that i'm not saying anyone but the most extreme cases is in fact completely motivated by a desire to destroy life or themselves. Most are a mixture -- a subtle mixture of a desire to destroy life and a fear of doing so. Essentially odysseus tied to the mast.
the real value of conceptualizing evil as the destruction of life is not that you get to label anybody who disagrees with you as totally evil, but that it allows you to trace all the various gradations of evil to a single source.
even these family members of mine would not qualify as "totally evil." but i'm firmly convinced that their motive for doing the evil things they do is, in fact, the desire to destroy the good. it's just that that desire is coded and masked and reinterpreted and held in check and rationalized in a thousand different ways. but like a head-fake, if you watch the chest, you can always tell where they're moving.
fwiw.
"My 'effing morons' refers not to her knowledge, but to her patronizing glare. A smart professional knows he or she is going to make mistakes, and treasures the existence of additional eyes and minds on the problems. Stupid professionals treat their clients like car or truck engines. 'Just sit there, shut up, and let me fix you.' My anger is directed and professionals who treat human beings like that."
Well said, and everyone has met the kind of professionals you're talking about.
Having said that, I don't think that Wounded Professional Vanity is the only driver in the situation you describe.
What I see here is a nurse who made a colossal, nearly catastrophic error. She undoubtedly sensed that this incident might have ended her career, with everything that entails in anyone's life.
In many situations like this, the nurse might also have been openly labelled by some as a moron or a baby killer. I certainly hope that didn't happen in the case you describe; but in similar situations, it undoubtedly does happen.
People on the receiving end of this kind of thing almost never handle the situation with humility and grace - although they may do so later, when things calm down.
When I reflect on my own reactions to professional screw-ups, Wounded Professional Vanity is always my first explanation. But later, when my blood pressure and adrenaline levels go down, I tend to understand such incidents in a wider context.
“Having said that, I don't think that Wounded Professional Vanity is the only driver in the situation you describe.”
That’s true, but my question is what “Wounded Professional Vanity” actually is. In other words, why does a person feel it? What’s the difference between a person who’s focused on The Work Itself (Roark Style) versus What People Think (Keating Style)? We don’t all experience Wounded Professional Vanity. Some of us are glad to have been saved from catastrophe, and appreciative of the client/patient’s much greater stake in the matter?
Here’s why I think it comes down to hatred of reality and life: As a professional, you have a limited knowledge and a limited ability. That’s an inescapable part of reality. Wounded professional pride is essentially an unwillingness to accept one’s limitations, precisely because one denies the reality in favor of the wish. For instance, I deny my limitations in favor of an imaginary story in which I know what’s going on and the client doesn’t. And I push aside evidence to the contrary.
How why would one ignore the fact that one’s capacities are inherently limited as a human being?
I’m convinced it’s because one hates the bare fact of those limitations. Which is to hate an aspect of yourself.
If you didn’t hate the fact that you have limitations, why would you go into denial every time they pop up? You wouldn’t. But hating something for part of it – even if you’re hating a limit – is hating the thing itself.
For instance, becoming angry at a 2 year old for failing to act like a 6 year old. It’s framed and rationalized as “wanting the best for the child.” But in reality, you hate the 2 year old because the 2 year old is not a 6 year old. Which is – in no uncertain terms – hating the 2 year old for what it is.
So in essence, I agree with your assessment of “wounded professional pride.” But beneat “wounded professional pride,” I see hatred of one’s own limitations, one’s lack of omniscience, and the reality that sometimes the patient knows what the doctor/nurse doesn’t. Which is, in essence, hatred of inescapable aspects of one’s own nature.
We're limited. To love and accept ourselves is to love and accept our limited nature. To hate one's limitations is to hate oneself:).
I really must repeat my recommendation of Branden's essay on "The Benefits and Hazards of the Philosophy of Ayn Rand" - with particular emphasis on the section which deals with "Encouraging Moralizing".
"on the surface, you can say he just really wanted her to move in with his mother. but when you consider the context -- what he's doing, how he's doing it, to me, it's clear his prime motive is controlling her."
Which seems to be to be a far cry from being "anti-life".
"An honest, empathic person doesn't ignore or not care about it. He sees it, smells it, lives it, knows it. That suffering he caused is a real part of his universe, just as the rain or a sunset or the rate of acceleration due to gravity. It can't _not_ be cared about. Because it's part of reality. A reality you created through your actions."
There's a couple points here.
One, this would seem to assume that empathy is part of discerning "reality", and I fail to see how that connection is logically made.
Two, Rand often portrayed empathy as being contingent on the character of the object of such feelings - if someone was "anti-life", like, say, Jim Taggart, how much empathy was shown? Or any such character? Zilch - right from the point of being the relatively benign irritants they were when introduced. How many times was Dagny in a crowd and saw them as featureless, worthless, or in some other way not deserving of her empathy?
Did the fact that she remorselessly shot a guard mean the guard did not somehow exist, or have feelings, or even a family somewhere who would suffer more for his loss? Or is it that her desire to save Galt trumped all that, just as someone who has no empathy for a person he might injure has other concerns easily trumping whether they stop to help?
Interesting, that argument tracks the argument he made in "My Years with Ayn Rand."
"In the objectivist frame of reference there is the assumption, made explicit in John Galt's speech in Atlas Shrugged, and dramatized throughout the novel in any number of ways, that the most natural, reasonable, appropriate response to immoral or wrong behavior is contempt and moral condemnation."
I think he's failing to distinguish here between her concept of "errors of knowledge" and moral failures. not only did she reject concept for "errors of knowledge," she called for the "utmost patience" in such cases. Her view of moral failure was much more narrow than that -- it applied only to the refusal to see, to know.
So while he appears to try and blur this together and conclude that objectivism calls for contempt of anyone who does something wrong, the primary materials themselves clearly distinguish -- contempt for denial, patience for error.
So the question is, is it appropriate to become angry and contemptuous of those who deliberately refuse to know?
I think it is. And I'll tell you why. When a person _does not want to see_, patience, kindness, and understanding are impotent. The person has blinded himself.
Now in making this distinction, is it possible to assign moral error where actually only an error in knowledge is involved? Certainly. And to the extent rand is accused of -- and may have -- assigned moral fault where only error or honest disagreement were involved -- she would not have been applying her own principles. I don't know if she actually did this, of course. And i'm very skeptical about one-sided stories from former friends:).
But the fact that one can be irresponsible in making such judgments does not negate the necessity of judgment. If a husband hits his wife when he's drunk and out of control, one may fairly say he made a mistake, and give him a second chance rather than destroy the marriage. But if a husband refuses to see the wrong, continues it, and rationalizes it, then patience, understanding, and forgiveness merely play into his hands.
You gotta know the difference. And knowing the difference is no easy thing, and mistakes can easily be made. But the fact that one ought to be conservative in making such judgments does not negate the necessity of making them.
"I think he's failing to distinguish here between her concept of "errors of knowledge" and moral failures."
"Failing to distinguish"? Seriously?
To say the least, Branden is well aware of this distinction. There is no indication that he developed some kind of amnesia since writing Basic Principles of Objectivism. And in the essay I've recommended, he writes:
"If someone has done something so horrendous that you want to tell him or her that the action is despicable, go ahead. . . . I don't deny that there are times when that is a thoroughly appropriate response. What I do deny is that it is an effective strategy for inspiring moral change or improvement."
The things to keep firmly in mind about Branden's paper is: he's dealt with literally thousands of Objectivists. He's not drawing unfavorable inferences for the sake of doing so. He's describing what he has seen. So I think that playing the Distinctions Game instead of coming to grips with his observations is a serious mistake.
In particular, I think a lot of weight needs to be given to his central remark on this point:
"The great, glaring gap in just about all ethical systems of which I have knowledge. . . is the absence of a technology to assist people in getting there, an effective means for acquiring these values and virtues, a realistic path people can follow. . . . And this is where psychology comes in: One of the tasks of psychology is to provide a technology for facilitating the process of becoming a rational, moral human being.
"You can tell people that it's a virtue to be rational, productive, or just, but, if they have not already arrived at that stage of awareness and development on their own, objectivism does not tell them how to get there. It does tell you you're rotten if you fail to get there."
Most people who have encountered Objectivists - and virtually everyone who is a former Objectivist - have no problem seeing what he is driving at here. Maybe you should give his essay a closer and slightly more sympathetic examination.
"To say the least, Branden is well aware of this distinction. There is no indication that he developed some kind of amnesia since writing Basic Principles of Objectivism."
Oh, I don't doubt he's aware of it. What I'm saying is, he's not applying it in this case. You be the judge of why he might omit that distinction from an essay evaluating the views of his ex-lover:).
"If someone has done something so horrendous that you want to tell him or her that the action is despicable, go ahead. . . . I don't deny that there are times when that is a thoroughly appropriate response. What I do deny is that it is an effective strategy for inspiring moral change or improvement."
I don't think Rand would disagree with his statement that contempt is not an effective strategy for inspiring moral change. On the contrary, I don't think she thought one person could inspire moral change in another person at all. She thought that the desire to improve came inexorably from the individual's choice.
In other words, she's not denying his observation that contempt doesn't change other people for the better. She's denying that any one person can change other people for the better, on the premise that the choice to improve can come from nowhere but inside the individual.
She would never say the contempt is a vehicle for helping others improve themselves morally. She would say contempt is the proper reaction to those who have no interest in moral improvement, purely on the basis of self-protection:).
""The great, glaring gap in just about all ethical systems of which I have knowledge. . . is the absence of a technology to assist people in getting there, an effective means for acquiring these values and virtues, a realistic path people can follow. . . . And this is where psychology comes in: One of the tasks of psychology is to provide a technology for facilitating the process of becoming a rational, moral human being."
Indeed, she didn't set out to devise a technology by which one person can help another to "get there." She insisted that the desire to get there can only come from the individual. In my experience, that's true. You can't motivate people who don't want to be motivated. If they don't want to hear it, they won't.
Of course, if a person does want to learn, then there's no justification for being an a-hole to him. Even if he disagrees with you.
"She's denying that any one person can change other people for the better, on the premise that the choice to improve can come from nowhere but inside the individual."
The first point to note is that this remarkably complacent utterance is a classic example of an unverifiable statement. If I point to a case where anyone has changed anyone for the better, the response is: well, that just proves the guy decided to change.
Some people in fact make a living trying to change people for the better. We call them counsellors and pyschotherapists. And if they waited for patients who were morally blameless, they'd go bankrupt.
On this reading, what do these people do anyway? Anything? Are they all conmen? Or are their services effective only if they are confined to those whom we have magically discerned to be guilty only of errors in knowledge?
I can't help thinking that this whole thing is weirdly reminiscent of the Amish: "Stay away from the unclean thing - and be thou separate!" Nasty people aren't going away anytime soon. Loud expressions of contempt may be morally satisfying, but they don't help anyone - including the person expressing the contempt.
"Some people in fact make a living trying to change people for the better. We call them counsellors and pyschotherapists. And if they waited for patients who were morally blameless, they'd go bankrupt."
Generally speaking, people go to counselors and psychotherapists _because they want to be better_. the counselor does not need to convince them of the value of improvement. the fact that the patient shows up proves they were already willing and able.
"And if they waited for patients who were morally blameless, they'd go bankrupt."
Again, the distinction between errors of knowledge and moral failure. A person who is honestly seek to overcome his problems is not "immoral" in the randian sense. he's just making errors of knowledge. on the contrary, he may well be morally blameless, if his actions (harmful as they might be) are based on honest mistakes and not self-deception.
"Or are their services effective only if they are confined to those whom we have magically discerned to be guilty only of errors in knowledge?"
I love my counselor:). She's the best:). But she doesn't have to motivate me. I go in there motivated. All she does is provide me with raw material, insights, and observations that I wouldn't have access to without her.
"You can't motivate people who don't want to be motivated. If they don't want to hear it, they won't."
I note your shift from talk of moral choice to talk of motivation. I don't think it helps your argument. Moral choice and motivation aren't the same at all.
It seems to make sense, at least on the surface, to say that moral change can only come from within. But motivation? If you say that that can't be instilled in people, I can only say that there are thousands of ad agencies, political parties, corporations and military forces that can and do find ways to do just that.
But experts at creating motivation almost never do it by a Randian strategy of getting people to think more clearly. . . :) That's because motivation is made of a whole parcel of drivers and not very many of them involve appeals to rational calculation. The really effective motivational appeals are the emotional and prudential ones.
Can these tactics be used to further evil objectives? Most certainly. But they can also nudge people in directions that they later realize were correct.
This is the world we live in. It's a complex ambiguous place. If we're going to understand what is going on it, we need cognitive tools that are much more varied and sophisticated than the ones you get from reading Atlas Shrugged.
"It seems to make sense, at least on the surface, to say that moral change can only come from within. But motivation?"
But I was talking about motivation for moral change:).
"I note your shift from talk of moral choice to talk of motivation. I don't think it helps your argument. Moral choice and motivation aren't the same at all."
Within the Randian context, they absolutely are:). That's the significance of the difference between an honest mistake and self-deception.
a person making an honest mistake is trying to do the right thing, but lacks the information to do it. He's motivated to be moral -- and to engage in moral change as necessary -- but he fails for want of information.
but a person who is deceiving himself is not trying to do the right thing at all. he's trying to avoid having to look at the reality of what he's doing.
that _is_ the moral distinction in objectivism -- a distinction of motivation -- of intention -- of honesty. not of always making the right choice.
that's why I thought branden's omission of this distinction was so telling. because that distinction is what makes the whole system work:).
take that distinction away, and the system is of course fundamentally ridiculous. put it in, though, and it's quite powerful:).
"But motivation? If you say that that can't be instilled in people, I can only say that there are thousands of ad agencies, political parties, corporations and military forces that can and do find ways to do just that."
I'd argue those guys simply provide information to make use of what they know of people's pre-existing internal motivations.
For instance, they identify a widespread motive to associate oneself with sexy women, coupled with a willingness to adopt fantasy. they then present "Beer" in such a way as to appear to be means to imagine oneself as associated with sexy women.
the motivation to be associated with sexy women, however, was already there. They're simply using it.
if you don't have that motivation already -- that is, if you don't want to associate yourself with sexy women, or you don't care to do it through fantasy, the ad has no effect:).
Lloyd:
>And how do sociopaths fit into an ant-life explanation. They are the most obvious case of a defective control mechanism.
Sociopaths are a problem for the Randian ethical model. Because they are simply selfishness, rigorously applied. This is why things like Rand's girlish, pseudo-intellectual admiration for the sociopath Hickman is troubling despite her later denials.
Rand doesn't really talk much about sociopaths, perhaps for this reason. When she does, such as in The Ethics of Emergencies, she devotes a couple of sentences to handwave this problem into somehow being one of too much...altruism!?
She doesn't really think through, or want to think through, the problems of maximising your selfishness. She claims, for example, that it is immoral to make sacrifices in following your highest value. But then she falls afoul of her own argument with an example of a woman who has fashion as her highest value, and buys a hat rather than feeds her baby - overlooking of course that it would be immoral to feed the baby by exactly that standard in Objectivism. Ideas have consequences!
"Sociopaths are a problem for the Randian ethical model. Because they are simply selfishness, rigorously applied."
Really:)? My experience with sociopaths is that they are self-destruction personified:). One of my sociopath relatives is in jail for life. Another is living at a much lower standard of living than I am, precisely because his sociopathic tendencies have sabotaged his life in too many ways to count:).
It's easy to call sociopaths "selfish," I guess, if you don't know any personally. Turns out they're their own worst enemies.
was my relative being selfish when he blew off his fingers playing with firecrackers while high? as a musician:)? a moment that completely destroyed any possibility he might have had to be self-supporting in the one thing he was good at? was that when he was being selfish:)?
ungtss:
>It's easy to call sociopaths "selfish," I guess, if you don't know any personally. Turns out they're their own worst enemies.
How do you know I don't know any sociopaths?...;-)
">It's easy to call sociopaths "selfish," I guess, if you don't know any personally. Turns out they're their own worst enemies.
How do you know I don't know any sociopaths?...;-)"
So far, because you haven't said you do, and because how you're describing them is completely at odds with what they actually are:). sociopaths are the ones who have opportunistic office affairs with nasty skanks, who then turn around and destroy the sociopath's career:). they're the ones who run countries as dictators, until one day they go to far and they get dragged out into the street and beaten to death and shoved in a meatfreezer. sociopaths are ticking time bombs, man:).
As a matter of fact I've known quite a few sociopaths quite well.
The problem is you, like Rand, are being inconsistent in the way you're applying your essentialism. Namely, Rand argues that while extreme altruism, where people totally sacrifice their every interest for everybody else's, is obviously destructive and only happens at the margin in real life, its "essence" nonetheless underpins the more generalised altruism and smaller sacrifices we see in day to day life - thus these are "essentially" evil. However, she doesn't want to apply the same logic to selfishness...
"However, she doesn't want to apply the same logic to selfishness..."
On the contrary, i think she applies exactly the same logic -- it's just not the one you're describing:).
To her, both the altruist and the sociopath are engaged in the same game -- self-abnegation. it's just that they've chosen different roads to rationalize it:).
Ungtss,
You are trying to see hidden motives from the effects of people's actions. This is not necessarily right. People do things that have unintended effects, both ones that they would prefer not to have and ones that they are indifferent to.
Sociopaths are impulsive. Impulsive people do things that harm themselves. Not just sociopaths. There is no need to introduce any life hating motivation. The problem is not what is there in their drives. It is what is not there in their controls. You are tying to locate evil in the drives and desires. The rest of us, are I think, seeing it in the controls. We don't need any motivations in people who do evil that are not present in the rest of us. We all have plenty of motives and desires that without control would lead us to do evil. It is tempting to deny the potential for evil in ourselves.
You also said that anti-life allowed you to trace all gradations of evil to a single source. Don't. You are seeking simplicity where you should expect not to find it. Human beings are complicated and morality is complicated. Moral failure will also be complicated. Read Baumeister's book for a better idea of how it happens.
"You are tying to locate evil in the drives and desires. The rest of us, are I think, seeing it in the controls. "
That's a fair distinction. I think you're right.
The question is, if it's "controls" then what, exactly, are they failing to control? I think they're failing to control their actual desires. You seem to think they're failing to control something they don't actually want. I'm not sure how that works.
Say i "fail to control" my desire to do something to harm myself. Why would I need to control myself in that regard if i didn't somehow want to do it?
I'm told that they don't intend the effects, they just intend the short-run feelings? And they want the short-run feelings so badly, they can't prevent themselves from doing things that have long-term bad effects?
That might be true in the case of somebody who regrets their impulsive actions. for instance, guilt after gluttony. But it cannot account for the people who experience no regret.
Sociopaths are both impulsive and lacking in empathy. The harm to others comes from both. The harm to themselves comes from the impulsiveness and from their making enemies because they have harmed others. Also I wonder to what extent you are thinking solely about violent sociopaths. There are plenty, probably more, non criminal sociopaths. These do themselves less harm. They are the boss from hell and the like.
You talked of their desires being so strong that they can't be resisted. You are missing the point. The desires don't have to be especially strong. It's the resistance to the desires that is weak.
We all have impulses and desires that unchecked would lead to harm. Most of us check them. I think you want to see evil people as having qualities that you lack and hence that you are something completely different from them. I think that there are simply people who vary in their resistance to harmful impulses. Some people will frequently fail. But most of those who fail in one circumstance will not in different ones. Most of us are less likely to fail but there are always some ways that we can.
"We all have impulses and desires that unchecked would lead to harm."
Bingo! The impulses will lead to harm unless checked. So the question is, "what are these impulses?"
you seem to think they're random, unintentional, arbitrary. i think they reflect actual wishes and desires.
I think that impulse to kill is a DESIRE TO KILL. You put a check on it, sure. But the reality is, you hate that person and want him to die. At least in the moment.
If you didn't have those hateful feelings, there would _be_ nothing to _check._
The only difference between us is, i think we actually want those things:). you evidently don't think we want those things:). but you haven't explained why we have impulses to do things we don't actually want:).
Do i have those impulses? I used to have them much more than i do now. Because i learned to identify what they are: actual feelings. Not random impulses. But actual hatreds. Which i needed to identify, process, rearrange, and correct.
Of course by your view, those hatreds aren't actually hatreds -- they're mere aimless "impulses" that pop out of nowhere. but i know they're not, because i've been conquering them one at a time:).
Do you know any cutters? That is, people who compulsively cut themselves with blades?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WHnx1WSH1dQ
"oh no, they don't actually want to hurt themselves. they just have random impulses that come out of nowhere."
bullshit, dude.
I desire wealth. This desire is chronic, it does not come out of nowhere. Burglary, embelelment and the like offer apparently easy quick ways to get wealth. I find the harm done by these repulsive. It is a gut level repulsion not put there by any philosophy and is rar stronger than any desire for wealth or any rear of punishment. I think this is the case for honest people in general. A sociopath lacks thes non rational repulsions. I think also that your honesty comes primarily from the same motives as mine and pre-dates any philosophy that you have adopted. And that you probably would not have adopted your philosophy if it obviously clashed with your moral intuitions.
"Burglary, embelelment and the like offer apparently easy quick ways to get wealth. I find the harm done by these repulsive. It is a gut level repulsion not put there by any philosophy and is rar stronger than any desire for wealth or any rear of punishment."
i agree with that ... but i think your finding it repulsive represents the act of seeing what it is -- depriving somebody of what they rightfully deserve in a personally dishonorable way. you don't need a complex philosophy to see that. a 2 year old can understand that taking somebody else's stuff is repulsive.
"A sociopath lacks thes non rational repulsions."
I agree with that too. I just disagree with how that person comes to lack them. I don't think it's some sort of biological "missing repulsion switch." i think it's a deliberate closing of one's eyes to the natural repulsions we all experience if we look at such things honestly. i don't think they "can't help it." i think they're deliberately closing their eyes to things they don't want to see.
"I think also that your honesty comes primarily from the same motives as mine and pre-dates any philosophy that you have adopted."
I agree.
"And that you probably would not have adopted your philosophy if it obviously clashed with your moral intuitions."
I agree:).
" I just disagree with how that person comes to lack them. I don't think it's some sort of biological "missing repulsion switch." i think it's a deliberate closing of one's eyes to the natural repulsions we all experience if we look at such things honestly. i don't think they "can't help it." i think they're deliberately closing their eyes to things they don't want to see."
The problem with a belief like this is that A) there's hardly any way to verify it beyond one's own intuition; and B) if it was such a voluntary choice to make, surely one could then choose to BE a sociopath.
The idea that "they could choose to be better if they wanted to/tried/thought in a more proper way" is akin to the idea that gay people could just somehow choose to not be gay. I see no reason why this should be the case, and if it was, that would mean that one could will oneself to become gay - or a sociopath. Do you think you could actively make such a choice?
Recently there was a study that found that monkeys have a sense of "fairness". In groups, if monkeys are all given a basic item of food, they display no unusual behavior. If they are uniformly given an especially delicious treat, they again behave in a normal fashion. But if it can be seen that some monkeys are getting a delicious treat, but others are getting regular food, the monkeys will become quite agitated.
Since the monkeys can't, as far as we know, reason out why they should act this way, we have to assume that this sense of fairness is inborn - and so it is conceivable that (as primates ourselves) morality is born into each of us humans to some degree - which means it could be lacking in some individuals.
Another recent article tracked the relation of rising and falling crime rates in the US with the rise and decline of lead in the environment. To grossly simplify and summarize, lead in gasoline and paint from decades ago was shown to have built up in the soil, particularly in highly urban areas. It is known that lead can cause developmental problems in growing children. Some time after lead levels would have been elevated because of their use in common products, crime rates began to rise, especially around those areas where usage was greatest. Eventually, lead was banned in many products. As lead has been slowly removed from the environment, crime rates have been steadily decreasing as well.
If these implications are true, then it is at least possible for an environmental factor to cause people to be born with less of a sense of morality than others.
With this in mind, I don't think one can definitively state that someone who does something objectionable is choosing to close themselves off from a morality they have, but are actively resisting. Such a claim also requires one to profess knowledge of the inner workings of other peoples' minds, always an iffy proposition at best.
To clarify: When I said "one could choose to BE a sociopath", I more accurately meant, "one who was not a sociopath before could choose to deliberately become a sociopath". That is, it would be possible to deliberately discard morality after practicing and valuing moral behavior. Which, of course, I think is highly unlikely.
Also I've never heard of anyone becoming a sociopath as an adult. There always are precursors of sociopathic behaviour as a child and sometimes behaviour as a child that in an adult would definitely be called sociopathic.
I've seen it said that we come with a first draft of morality. Moral intuitions are built into us but our morality is modified as we develop. But how much of that development happens as a result of deliberate conscious choices? Probably most it is not.
Our moral reactions are too quick to be a result of our philosophy or conscious values. They will affect them but only gradually and when they directly confict will usually loose at least in the short term.
“The problem with a belief like this is that A) there's hardly any way to verify it beyond one's own intuition; “
Again, the methodology is to watch how they behave. If a person does not see suffering, they will respond to suffering with a blind eye. If they see it but don’t want to, they will respond to suffering with a pattern of rationalization designed to ease their conscience. The difference is palpable.
“The idea that "they could choose to be better if they wanted to/tried/thought in a more proper way" is akin to the idea that gay people could just somehow choose to not be gay. I see no reason why this should be the case, and if it was, that would mean that one could will oneself to become gay - or a sociopath. Do you think you could actively make such a choice?”
Well, yes:). One of my high school girlfriends became a lesbian about 15 years later after a failed marriage. A coworker’s husband became gay after his marriage with my coworker. A college friend was gay until his mid-twenties then went straight.
Of course, the conventional wisdom is that these people were “really” gay and are just forcing themselves to be straight. But there’s no evidence for that, and if you ask the people involved, they’ll tell you their interests changed:).
The gap between the conventional wisdom and the reality is driven by the political agenda that depends on homosexuality being innate:).
“Recently there was a study that found that monkeys have a sense of "fairness". In groups, if monkeys are all given a basic item of food, they display no unusual behavior. If they are uniformly given an especially delicious treat, they again behave in a normal fashion. But if it can be seen that some monkeys are getting a delicious treat, but others are getting regular food, the monkeys will become quite agitated.”
This reflects a particular notion of “fairness” in the scientists with which I don’t agree:). I don’t think that reflects a sense of fairness so much as a sense of envy. There’s nothing “unfair” in one person receiving more than somebody else, when none of them have done anything to deserve anything:). Fairness is a notion that arises solely from what one deserves as a result of one’s behavior. For instance, I agreed to work for $5 and hour but you only paid me four. Or “I did better on that project than she did but she got the good review.” Arbitrary feedings do not give rise to questions of fairness. They do give rise to envy, as in the case of one person envying another's natural good looks. "Good looks" are neither fair nor unfair. They're handed out arbitrarily by nature. That's what makes people so damn envious of them:).
And it’s clear animals can experience envy. My dog experiences it whenever my wife takes our other dog for a walk. He goes nuts. With the same whining, sniveling envy you’d see at any statist political rally:).
But fairness is a completely different notion:).
“Some time after lead levels would have been elevated because of their use in common products, crime rates began to rise, especially around those areas where usage was greatest. Eventually, lead was banned in many products. As lead has been slowly removed from the environment, crime rates have been steadily decreasing as well.”
I’d have to see the study, but I’m very skeptical of the methodology:).
Lloyd,
“Our moral reactions are too quick to be a result of our philosophy or conscious values. They will affect them but only gradually and when they directly confict will usually loose at least in the short term.”
Have you read “Blink” by Malcolm Gladwell?
Sexual orientation is a choice? I don't recall ever choosing to be heterosexual. So why should I doubt homosexuals who say that their orientation was innate?
There are of course plenty of bi-sexuals. How many of those who say they have changed their sexual orientation were actually bi-sexual?
But more I know too many transsexuals and inter-sexed people. Some transsexuals change their sexual orientation under the influence of the hormone regimes that they are on. No choice involved and they can find it quite disturbing.
"Sexual orientation is a choice? I don't recall ever choosing to be heterosexual. So why should I doubt homosexuals who say that their orientation was innate?"
I wouldn't say there's any reason to doubt a person who claims that ... not without anything else to go on:). I have more than a little to go in my personal relationships. She was definitely straight back in 95:). She was definitely straight when she got married to some other dude a few years later. Now she's happily in a lesbian relationship of 8 years, with one adopted girl and two twin boys from an artificial insemination:). And while she's passionate about gay rights and gay marriage, she's not silly enough to claim it was "innate." she switched teams because she liked the other team better:). She knows that:).
That's because the choice isn't in one's "orientation," but in who and what one wants to be sexually intimate with:). Can these choices appear innate? Sure they can. My daughter has loved ketchup since before she could speak. Is she somehow an innate "ketchup" lover? of course not:). she just likes ketchup. and as she grows up and her values change, she learns to appreciate more sophisticated tastes:).
that's my experience with close personal relationships with gay and lesbian friends and lovers:). your mileage may vary:).
as usual, I wouldn't try and convince you based on my anecdotes. that would be silly. i'm just laying out the basis for my opinion, which is my experience.
"Do you think you could actively make such a choice?”
Well, yes:)."
So you are saying that you, ungtss, could choose to become a sociopath?
"The real question is, not whether some people are anti-life, but whether these particular ideas she identifies as antilife serve that purpose. Interestingly, the whole plot of her book is structured around exactly how difficult and unpleasant it is to accept this possibility. She clearly recognized how undesirable it was. And I certainly found it undesirable myself. It took me about 12 years to realize that she was right."
I suspect that you wouldn't be impressed if I told you that it took me 12 years to realize that she was wrong. Nor should you be. I'm not impressed by your vouching - for about the same reasons that you're probably not impressed by mine.
That's why vouching is such a waste of time. In intellectual discussions, it carries no weight with anyone except the person doing the vouching :) .
“So you are saying that you, ungtss, could choose to become a sociopath?”
Why yes:). Yes I am:). I experience that as an option available to me at any time. Sometimes, when I lose perspective on my long term goals, it can appear to be a very attractive option:).
“That's why vouching is such a waste of time. In intellectual discussions, it carries no weight with anyone except the person doing the vouching :) .”
Whether or not something is a “Waste of time” depends on a goal. Vouching is a waste of time if one is seeking to persuade, certainly. Particularly on a blog, where one has no personal credibility. But expressing one’s experience with ideas is not a waste of time if one is seeking to understand and be understood:). In this forum, certain things can be debated and demonstrated -- logical fallacies, for instance. But the nuances of individual experiences and personal relationships do not translate well to soundbite sized comments on a blog:). Still, there’s value in expressing who we are and where we come from.
ungtss:
>On the contrary, i think she applies exactly the same logic -- it's just not the one you're describing:).
Ok, why not lay her logic out then?
I thought I did:). from her perspective, being a sociopath and being an altruist are two sides of the same self-abnegating coin.
You're assuming that being a sociopath is being "extremely selfish," and then imposing that premise on her argument, to show that she treats selfishness and selflessness by different standards. but she denies that being a sociopath is being extremely selfish. she would say that being a sociopath is being self-destructive. with that premise intact, she treats being a sociopath and being an altruist with exactly the same logic.
The proper place for an opponent to attack her ideas is therefore in her premise that being a sociopath is being selfless, rather than being selfish. if you could show that, the whole house of cards would fall down:).
Ungtss,
You are not claiming that you could become a sociopath. You are claiming that you could act like a sociopath. You are claiming that sociopaths do not exist. The concept that we refer to when we talk about sociopaths is the concept of people without the capacity for empathy, the capacity to mirror others feelings.
You are claiming that those that we are referring to do have that capacity but evade its effect. But if that capacity has a biological basis then there will be cases when it is defective to a greater or lesser degree. It is a mistake to think of sociopathy as an all or nothing thing.
The behaviour of those that we call sociopaths, as far as we can see, is better explained by a lifelong defect than by any choice. If it is a result of choice then we would not expect it to be lifelong. So what is the basis for your claim that they have the capacity but avoid it? This looks like you are trying to argue away facts that are inconvenient for your philosophy rather than modifying your philosophy into accord with the facts.
"You are claiming that sociopaths do not exist. The concept that we refer to when we talk about sociopaths is the concept of people without the capacity for empathy, the capacity to mirror others feelings."
The DSM-IV doesn’t say anything about the “Capacity” for empathy. It defines antisocial personality disorder in terms of a pattern of behavior, nor the capacity to engage in behavior. Antisocial personality disorder is defined as "... a pervasive pattern of disregard for, and violation of, the rights of others that begins in childhood or early adolescence and continues into adulthood.” Similarly, the Hare Psychopathy Checklist deals only with patterns of behavior, not with hypothetical questions about the capacity for behavior:).
The reason for this is that the question of “capacity” is unfalsifiable. How does one differentiate between a person who doesn’t, and a person who can’t? Guesswork, mostly:). Because all you have in front of you is a person who doesn’t.
The question, then, is whether they can or can’t. And the question I’d leave you with then is, if they lack empathy, how are they able to be so manipulative in so many cases? In other words, if the problem is that they can’t sense the feelings of others, how is it that they characteristically extremely well atuned to the feelings of others for purposes of manipulation?
My answer is that they’re getting the information, and choosing not to use it:). What’s yours?
ungtss:
>The proper place for an opponent to attack her ideas is therefore in her premise that being a sociopath is being selfless, rather than being selfish. if you could show that, the whole house of cards would fall down:).
There are a number of ways you can make Rand's house of cards fall down on this one. Have you really challenged it yourself, considering what might be wrong with it, rather than simply matching it to your personal experience and going "aha!"? Our personal experience, while compelling to us, is often a poor guide to the truth. For example, my personal experience, reinforced daily, is that the sun moves across the sky, and the earth stands still. And indeed, for a while there was a well-known matching theory. But it turns out the truth is the opposite...;-)
Can you imagine some ways Rand's theory might run into trouble?
"Can you imagine some ways Rand's theory might run into trouble?"
I spent 12 years fighting it, yes, I can imagine ways it might run into trouble. what I discovered, the hard way, is that it provides enormously valuable ways to get _out_ of trouble, and a number of errors where she failed to follow her own rules:).
ungtss:
>And it’s clear animals can experience envy. My dog experiences it whenever my wife takes our other dog for a walk. He goes nuts.
Oh, I see. So, obviously, your dog had picked up his or her basic premises from the intellectual leaders of his pack without thinking them through and was now the victim of an unexamined, anti-life premise. Clearly at some point the ideas of Plato and Kant had somehow entered the canine world too to wreak their destruction. Or perhaps their doggie equivalents had emerged to do the same, writing the equivalent of the Critique of Pure Reason on every fire hydrant. Still, once you train him or her to read Atlas Shrugged they should be able to check their premises and correct their epistemological errors. And once they're trained to bark Galt's speech to their fellows in the neighbourhood, canine civilisation may yet be saved.
Do you see the problem here?...;-)
ungtss:
>yes, I can imagine ways it might run into trouble
Ok. Can you tell us some of them? The reason I ask is that Objectivists are not very good at putting their own doctrine to the test. Yet such a self-critical attitude is very important in the search for truth. I suspect you are different in this regard, so I'm interested in how you challenged elements of Rand's doctrine before you eventually accepted them.
"Do you see the problem here?...;-)"
Delicious.
Also, I consider that you are generalising far too much from your personal experience, and from reading Rand (who knew little of psychology and really only referred to them as abstractions), as to how sociopaths function and what their outcomes are. In reality, it turns out there are many successful and high functioning ones. For example, here.
I have a hard time believing you've been reading what I've been writing, since I've stated numerous points of disagreement with rand. In particular her adherence to tabula rasa, relevant to your most recent comment regarding envy in dogs:). I think her fundamental argument would be much strengthened by changing tabula rasa to tabula animala, and I've said so:).
"I think her fundamental argument would be much strengthened by changing tabula rasa to tabula animala, and I've said so:)."
To which fundamental argument are you referring? And how would that fundamental argument, whatever it is, be strengthened in the way you maintain?
I don't accept tabula rasa myself. But I think that much of Rand's arguments - particularly those regarding volition and the primacy of reason - are severely compromised if one doesn't accept it.
This is a system. And some things really can't be dropped if that system is to be maintained.
The fundamental argument is that man is a creature of self made soul. She argues, falsely, that we create ourselves from a blank slate. I think it's much more effective to argue that we create ourselves from an animal mind -- the mind of monkeys and apes and dogs. If we don't choose to think, that's where we remain. If we choose to think, we can become human in the normative sense:).
Galt's speech:
“Do not hide behind the cowardly evasion that man is born with free will, but with a “tendency” to evil. A freewill saddled with a tendency is like a game with loaded dice. It forces man to struggle through the effort of playing, to bear responsibility and pay for the game, but the decision is weighted in favor of a tendency that he had no power to escape. If the tendency is of his choice, he cannot possess it at birth; if it is not of his choice, his will is not free.”
Comments?
Valid within the context of the argument, which has to do with free will. Tabula animala would say "you have tendencies and the power to overcome them," consistent with free will and our experience:).
So you admit the existence of the "tendencies". And if you also believe in free will, you are maintaining that every human being on earth, regardless of the power of those tendencies in himself or herself, has the power to overcome them and can be held morally responsible if he or she fails to do so.
On both the factual level and the ethical level, it looks to me like you have a very, very high hill to climb. . .
Actually neuroscience is firmly on my side:). The key is understanding the difference between the prefrontal cortex and the automated portions of the brain. They literally function in different ways and often toward conflicting goals. The key to success and happiness, as a human, is to reprogram one's automated, animal brain into a rational human brain capable of setting and accomplishing goals. Our neuroplasticity makes this possible. More and more books and researchers are recognizing this reality. Rand got close, but her "tabula rasa" kept her from getting there.
I dare say if she'd gotten there, she may have been able to identify and avoid the pitfalls that plague her legacy:).
Yes, I know about neuroplasticity.
You may think you can blend concepts like that with Objectivism. I don't think so. It's a fundamental mismatch.
The more complex the model gets, the more free will has a way of getting lost somewhere in the wiring. Rand said: "I am - therefore I'll think." This has become: "I am - and the key to success and happiness, as a human, is to reprogram one's automated, animal brain into a rational human brain capable of setting and accomplishing goals." At a generous estimate, I'd guess that only about 10% of the human race is ever going to understand what you're talking about.
The determinist has a much easier time of it here. He's entirely comfortable with the data about neuroplasticity. But he sees the problem as: what social incentives and disincentives can we come up with that will push or guide people - most of whom don't spend a lot of time on philosophical reflection - into behaviours that are constructive rather than destructive?
This is what societies have in fact been doing for a long, long time. The new scientific data seems likely to mean that they'll be even more effective at it than they have been. Exciting. Very disturbing too.
I suppose the question of whether it’s a “fundamental mismatch” depends on what aspects one deems to be fundamental. I consider the fundamental aspects of her philosophy to be the image of man as potentially heroic; of individualism; of reason as man’s absolute, of enlightened self-interest; and of freedom. I don’t think the recognition that we are endowed with an animal nature at birth which we are free to overcome by act of will conflicts with any of those aspects.
what aspects do you consider fundamental, such that this would create a "fundamental mismatch?"
I think the recognition of our animal nature heightens and strengthens all those fundamental aspects. Who is more heroic: the man who draws a masterpiece on a blank slate, or the man who draws a masterpiece on a slate that has already been scribbled on, defecated on, chipped and cracked before he can even hold a pencil? I think that latter is more heroic, because he overcomes more opposition and challenge in achieving his goals. I also think this comports much more closely with what we know of ourselves through science and through introspection.
“At a generous estimate, I'd guess that only about 10% of the human race is ever going to understand what you're talking about.”
Well, that’s on them:). Reason is man’s means of happiness. If they want to stay unhappy, that’s their call. i'm gonna do what i'm gonna do:). that's another pitfall rand fell into. she tried to "fix the world." galt would never have done that:).
“But he sees the problem as: what social incentives and disincentives can we come up with that will push or guide people - most of whom don't spend a lot of time on philosophical reflection - into behaviours that are constructive rather than destructive?”
And right there, he’s abandoned determinism for himself, because he thinks he can affirmatively “come up” with something, while others cannot. He imagines himself to be uniquely endowed with the capacity to reason, and others as mere putty in his hands to be “conditioned.” That’s why he’s such a sick, sick sonofabitch.
Well, as I mentioned, societies have been doing exactly that sort of conditioning at least back to the Egyptians and Sumerians in 3,000 BC. And they still do. Attempted rebuttals of determinism won't make that fact go away.
The key point: once you accept the existence of what you call "tabula animula", the debate inevitably shifts to: how powerful are the tendencies I have? How greatly do they vary from person to person? How are they best controlled?
Rand regards volition as a self-evident axiomatic feature of human consciousness. She therefore ignores all the above questions as irrelevant or wrong-headed. You can't.
Once you start to get into talk about the prefrontal cortex, you're hostage to a host of factual issues: the limits of neuroplasticity; the variations between people, both in terms of the powers of their impulses and their capacity to control them; and where exactly moral responsibility is supposed to be positioned for someone who hasn't quite finished that transfer to the prefrontal zone.
I don't know the answer to these questions. Neither do you. Period.
This just isn't a context that sits comfortably with talk about free will. What you're doing is trotting out the science when it suits you - while clinging to a sense of free will grounded solely in introspection. Sorry, that doesn't really cut it. When you've moved into the scientist's tennis court, you have to play by his rules.
ungtss:
>I have a hard time believing you've been reading what I've been writing, since I've stated numerous points of disagreement with rand.
I didn't say it was your problem...;-)
It is of course a problem for Rand's edifice on any number of levels as my little parody hopefully makes clear. The proximate problem - and it's a big one - is obviously that "fundamental premises" are not the source of the emotions, but instead our animal machinery. Can this machinery be "reprogrammed" to some degree? Of course! But even if that was Rand's argument, which it isn't, it's hardly very interesting or original. You don't need to have the latest research on this point. Everyone knows you can train even a dog to some degree.
Further, the existence of high-functioning and successful psychopaths falsifies Rand's "anti life premise" theory, as it predicts they shouldn't exist. If, however, we replace Rand's theories with an evolutionary model of the brain in which, crudely, altruistic and selfish modules exist as both can confer benefits to survival, which in turn are regulated by sub modules which can be stronger or weaker depending on the roll of the genetic dice, all of which in turn are controlled by socially evolving mores, traditions, and disciplines, and finally also adaptable by an individual's free will to some extent, then you have a theoretical picture that matches the facts of reality a lot better than Rand's. (Even Freud's is closer than Rand's and Freud is pretty wrong). Is the aforegoing more or less your model? Well congrats - you actually agree with Ayn Rand Contra Human Nature more than you agree with Ayn Rand! I really don't know why you aren't out there arguing with Objectivists rather than us...;-)
The wider problem for Rand is that due to her holism, where she claimed that if any part of her system was wrong it was therefore all wrong, her system is therefore all wrong. So now Objectivism's a fail even on her own terms.
But the ultimate problem is that you can build up a much clearer picture of reality without needing Rand at all. Sure, people can twist and turn her vague claims to kinda sorta fit the facts if they have a sentimental attachment to her inspirational rhetoric and are good at word-games. All they're doing are "saving the phenomena" the way the priests tried to preserve Ptolemy. In the end, all it did was get in the way.
"Well, as I mentioned, societies have been doing exactly that sort of conditioning at least back to the Egyptians and Sumerians in 3,000 BC. And they still do. Attempted rebuttals of determinism won't make that fact go away"
Yes, and their civilizations have collapsed into a heap of rubble, one after another, because one group of people fancies themselves competent to "condition" another.
"Rand regards volition as a self-evident axiomatic feature of human consciousness. She therefore ignores all the above questions as irrelevant or wrong-headed. You can't."
I still think volition is a self-evident axiomatic feature of consciousness. it's just not an all-encompassing, comprehensive explanation for our consciousness. there's more. like the amygdala:).
"Once you start to get into talk about the prefrontal cortex, you're hostage to a host of factual issues: the limits of neuroplasticity; the variations between people, both in terms of the powers of their impulses and their capacity to control them; and where exactly moral responsibility is supposed to be positioned for someone who hasn't quite finished that transfer to the prefrontal zone.
I don't know the answer to these questions. Neither do you. Period."
True, but not relevant. The point is that any competent theory of free will needs to recognize its well-known and understood limitations. Our free will is not absolute. That's what makes it all the more heroic.
"This just isn't a context that sits comfortably with talk about free will. "
Not an absolute free will. But we don't experience having an absolute free will. We experience a bounded free will. A partial one. An underdog:).
"It is of course a problem for Rand's edifice on any number of levels as my little parody hopefully makes clear. The proximate problem - and it's a big one - is obviously that "fundamental premises" are not the source of the emotions, but instead our animal machinery. "
This is an an absolute statement that isn't appropriate in this context:). our animal machinery provides some input. Our fundamental premises provide other input. The story of our lives is determined by how we cope with this tension:).
You say i'm rejecting rand. That's true, and only on this point. To the extent she adopted a black and white, all or nothing attitude with respect to her own philosophy, she erred:). i don't intend to repeat that error. That doesn't mean i intend to repeat the errors of those who ignore the many things of value she had to say:).
Ungtss,
You are recoiling from the idea that a terrible act can and usually will have trivial motives. I can understand why you are doing this but there is no reason why it should be so.
You do not need something like hatred of life to explain a spree killer. I suggested glory seeing was the most likely explanation in most cases. Combine this with a lack of empathy and you have a sufficient explanation in some and I think probably most cases. It will not be a universal explanation. But whatever the motive is don't look for a grand motive that is in proportion to the act. Expect that the motive will be disproportionately trivial.
Recognize how comforting the idea of their acting from things like anti-life is and recognize that the comfortable explanation for evil will usually be the false one. I think it is a failure of imagination on your part because it is easier to see them as having a motive that you can't share rather than one that you do.
I don’t know, man, glory is much more understandable motive than the sheer desire to destroy life. I can understand wanting to be famous. Wanting to kill kids is beyond me.
The question is whether their motive is actually glory. And for that, you gotta wonder, do they actually expect to get it? Yes, people talk about shooters. But they don’t talk about them in glorifying terms. They talk about them in terms of notoriety. Of being terrible. Horrible beasts. They psychoanalyze them and throw them in jail for 20 to life. That’s not “glory” to anybody, as far as I can tell.
Is it possible part of their motive is to be widely viewed as powerful and destructive? Sure. But that leaves you with the question, why do they want to be seen that way:)?
In order to believe that “glory” is their motive, I have to believe they had some reason to believe they might achieve it. But they’d have absolutely no reason to believe they would achieve it, because no past shooters get glory. They get notoriety, which is quite different:).
It's a possible motive. It's a common motive that usually lead to far less harm or no harm.
You are looking for a motive strong emough to overcome resistance to the idea of killing. The rest of us are saying the motive in not so important if the resistance is weak. If the resistance is weak enough, if there is sufficient lack of sense of proportion then even the best of motives can lead to great harm. The question is not what drives evil but what allows evil?
And you are trying to get the motive from the effect. But what is important to the victim about an act is not necessarilly what is important to the perpetrator. To understand evil you must not look at it from the victims viwpoint. You have to suspend judgment and look at it from the perpetrators viewpoint. Afterwards you judge. And understanding is not excusing.
For an example of something horrendous with a pathetic banal motive I think we need look no further than the Holocaust. As far as I can tell the main Nazi motive was scapegoating and what I think was behind this was self-pity. That lot were allways whining a bout what had happened to their country and were unwilling to recognize that the mess was their fault.
“You are looking for a motive strong emough to overcome resistance to the idea of killing.”
Actually I’m saying that the motive is killing:).
“The rest of us are saying the motive in not so important if the resistance is weak. If the resistance is weak enough, if there is sufficient lack of sense of proportion then even the best of motives can lead to great harm. The question is not what drives evil but what allows evil?”
That’s true, and it helps me to understand that’s what you mean. I don’t agree though that the proper question is what allows evil. I think the real question is where it comes from. Sure, a weak fence can be broken down by a truck more easily than a strong fence. But who’s driving the truck and where are they trying to go:)?
“As far as I can tell the main Nazi motive was scapegoating and what I think was behind this was self-pity.”
I like this example, because it allows us to get to the root of what’s going on there. First, you have to understand the roots of the term “scapegoat.” And I’m sure you do, but it’s worth emphasizing. The ancient Jews developed a ritual by which a goat was killed to account for the tribe’s sins. They believed that the sin required death, but that it was possible to pass one’s own sins on to a goat. Think about that for a minute:). They were quite explicitly developing a myth by which their own hatred of themselves (guilt for sin) was passed on to some innocent animal, and the animal killed.
That was, in no uncertain terms, the projection of one’s self-hatred onto another, and the murder of the other as a proxy for the (perceived) deserved death of the individual.
This same concept carried forward into Christianity, and persists today. Christians are taught that they are sinful and worthy of contempt. But that sin can be passed on to another innocent demi-god.
What’s intriguing here is that the sin can’t be passed off onto just anything. It had to be a “pure and flawless animal.” And in Christianity, it had to be the god-man. It had to be an innocent, perfect being. Nothing else would work.
Now ask yourself by what psychological process a person might convince himself that this would work:).
That same process is at work in every instance of scapegoating. It is the hatred of the self, projected onto another innocent person. And then the other innocent person is killed as a proxy for the self. You note that it was a refusal of german leadership and people to accept responsibility for their problems. That’s true. But it’s much more than that. One does not get to concentration camps and ovens by a mere refusal to accept responsibility. One gets there by the same process Christians got to the idea that jesus’ death would somehow purify them of their own guilt. The innocent must die as a proxy for the guilty.
That is, of course, rand’s premise of death at the nub:). The innocent must be destroyed for the guilty. The good must die for the bad. The strong must suffer for the weak.
Lest ye think i'm making this up:
http://www.publiceye.org/tooclose/scapegoating-02.html
"The point is that any competent theory of free will needs to recognize its well-known and understood limitations. Our free will is not absolute. That's what makes it all the more heroic."
The real difference between this claim and those that a "soft determinist" would make is virtually non-existent.
Everyone understands the idea of different outcomes. One of two kids from the same slum - or even the same family - can be fabulously successful while the other kid goes nowhere. And the offspring of the successful guy might not do so well either: Socrates made that point about the sons of Pericles 2400 years ago. If this is how you go about showing that there is free will, my answer is: is that all you have?
As far as I can see, all the talk about the heroic in man is merely a romanticist icing on top of what amounts to a soft determinist cake. And of course, it also provides a rationale against anything that might even slightly even the odds against someone getting out of that slum. . .
"The real difference between this claim and those that a "soft determinist" would make is virtually non-existent."
You must have a different notion of "soft determinism" than i do:). as i understand soft determinism, it's simply compatibilism, which defines "choice" to include our experience of choice, but to exclude the real possibility of an alternative outcome. that's not at all what i'm saying.
what i'm saying is that we have a very real, incompatibilist free will. but it exists in the context of a consciousness, many parts of which are outside of our immediate control, and a smaller number of which may be brought within our immediate control by act of will.
for instance, your body's responses to anxiety are automated. the fight or flight instinct is hard wired. you didn't think it through. your body gave it to you. but by act of will, you can learn to identify, and in many respects to control your threat reactions.
as such the animal parts of our mind are just like other aspects of the body that are handed to us. my genetics determines what kind of arms i am given. my workout regime determines what kinds of arms i develop.
rand, in claiming tabula rasa, wants to deny that our mind comes with baggage. this is nonsense. our minds come with baggage.
but none of this has anything to do with soft determinism, because it's all inherently incompatibilist. alternate possibilities are possible. you just have to work within the context of the mind you were born with.
Ungtss,
What you are neglecting is that the common usage of "scapegoating" is a generalization of the original and differs in two important ways. The first is that the innocence of the victim is an irrelevance rather than something desired. The second is that it is not blame transfer but blame avoidance. The original usage was to transfer recognized guilt to the sacrifice. The usual usage is to shy away from accepting blame and responsibility in the first place by seeking someone that you can convince yourself is really to blame. Fear is a more likely motive than self-hatred.
"But it’s much more than that. One does not get to concentration camps and ovens by a mere refusal to accept responsibility." You are shying away from the point. For a terrible evil you are demanding a non trivial motive. You are refusing to accept that is no more. But why should there be? It is unpleasant to admit that the universe is so capricious that trivial motives can lead to great suffering but that is the way it is. You are demanding that the cause be in proportion to the effect. It often is not.
You are reading self-hatred into peoples actions when other explanations are quite capable of explaining things. You seem to be trying to seek a single underlying cause for evil. But there is no reason why there should be one. Anti-life is an unnecessary contrivance to get this unnecessary unification.
“The first is that the innocence of the victim is an irrelevance rather than something desired.”
Is it? Is it just coincidence that the victims in these concentration camps weren’t even the bankers they were ostensibly so mad at? That they were in fact children, invalids, housewives, and ordinary working people? If they really thought the bankers were to blame for their problems, why didn’t they go after the bankers and leave the innocents alone?
Answer: they needed to kill the innocents:).
“The second is that it is not blame transfer but blame avoidance.”
Is it? How does blaming somebody else for your problems, as they did, not “transfer” it to them? Sure, you get to pretend that they aren’t your problems aren’t yours anymore. But only because you’re blaming an innocent third party. i.e. transferring your guilt to them.
“Fear is a more likely motive than self-hatred.”
Well, I don’t think those are mutually exclusive, but assuming they are for the sake of argument, why do you say fear is the more likely of the two?
“For a terrible evil you are demanding a non trivial motive.”
I wouldn’t say “demanding” so much as observing that one exists. You can see the non-trivial motive at work if you live and work closely with the people who exercise it. My view here starts with observations about reality based on my experience with real people – the theory is only an inference from those facts.
From that standpoint, it seems to me as though you are shying away from the non-trivial motive, and trying to explain it away in terms of something arbitrary. During the years of my life when I had that attitude, I was uniformly a sheep among wolves, permitting myself to be taken advantage of because I was always willing to explain away other’s behavior. I no longer do that. And I find I am no longer taken advantage of as systematically as I was when I refused to see that some of the people around me were in fact harming me for the sake of harming me.
In fact, I discovered I explained away their actions as trivial precisely because I could not cope with the fact that people with a great deal of power over me were in fact using that power to systematically harm me. That was the terrifying notion that I couldn’t allow myself to accept. But eventually reality got to be too much to ignore, and I realized they were in fact, trying to hurt me. So I stopped letting them. Life is better now:). I have much more emotional energy for the people in life that don’t wish to harm me.
Lloyd:
>You do not need something like hatred of life to explain a spree killer.
Yes. The main problem with woolly, pretentious, speculative theories like "hatred of life" is how can you test it to see if it's true?
Well, one way is to try studying some spree killers. It turns out, sure, some are miserable wretches. But others are focussed, ruthless, and charming people who enjoy life. They like it so much, they kill people who get in the way of their enjoyment of life. Some might even find killing adds to that enjoyment.
Obviously this sort of evidence falsifies the "hatred of life" theory. Like epicycles in astronomy, "hatred of life" only explains a limited piece of the phenomena, and cannot explain the rest. This indicates a different, better theory is required. Sure, you can cling to it, and keep adding speculative layers to try to preserve the theory in the same way the Scholastics could not bring themselves to give up Ptolemy. Hey, maybe the happy spree killers hate life at some remote, yet-undiscovered psychological level. Maybe the theory's defenders could try to redefine terms like"hate" or "life" to prop up their theory (that's the Randian way, as it requires the least actual work....;-)) You can do all that, all day long.
But it comes down to what you're trying to achieve - whether you're looking to justify a pet theory, or whether you're looking for the truth about way things work. The latter almost always requires the willingness to dispense with the former, because reality is constantly surprising.
So I would regard the "hatred of life" theory as so far either simply wrong, or framed so vaguely that it's untestable. Why one would prefer that over more testable explanations with better predictive power I don't know.
Also the other problem with "hatred of life" as an explanatory theory is that it really only moves the problem back a step.
Because where does "hatred of life" (or "hatred of the good for being good") then come from?
Rand's answer - from evil premises inculcated into the population from evil commander-in-chief philosophers* - even ungtss agrees is wrong, as he's noted his dog has the same envy as statist activists. And he is not prepared to argue that dogs have philosophers, definitions and premises...;-)
Therefore there must be something else at the root.
*and of course, where did they get them from...? Blank out!
"The main problem with woolly, pretentious, speculative theories like "hatred of life" is how can you test it to see if it's true?"
As i keep explaining, one does so in exactly the same way as one determines all motives: by inferring intention from action, and testing one's hypothesis against future action.
And as Karl Popper might (and we try) to explain to you:
'A Marxist could not open a newspaper without finding on every page confirming evidence for his interpretation of history; not only in the news, but also in its presentation — which revealed the class bias of the paper — and especially of course what the paper did not say. The Freudian analysts emphasized that their theories were constantly verified by their "clinical observations..."'
And so go the Randians.
Actually, I'll hand the mike to Sir Karl for a bit, as this is very relevant to the discussion right now:
"As for [the psychologist] Adler, I was much impressed by a personal experience. Once, in 1919, I reported to him a case which to me did not seem particularly Adlerian, but which he found no difficulty in analyzing in terms of his theory of inferiority feelings, although he had not even seen the child. Slightly shocked, I asked him how he could be so sure. "Because of my thousandfold experience," he replied; whereupon I could not help saying: "And with this new case, I suppose, your experience has become thousand-and-one-fold."
What I had in mind was that his previous observations may not have been much sounder than this new one; that each in its turn had been interpreted in the light of "previous experience," and at the same time counted as additional confirmation. What, I asked myself, did it confirm? No more than that a case could be interpreted in the light of a theory. But this meant very little, I reflected, since every conceivable case could be interpreted in the light Adler's theory, or equally of Freud's. I may illustrate this by two very different examples of human behavior: that of a man who pushes a child into the water with the intention of drowning it; and that of a man who sacrifices his life in an attempt to save the child. Each of these two cases can be explained with equal ease in Freudian and Adlerian terms. According to Freud the first man suffered from repression (say, of some component of his Oedipus complex), while the second man had achieved sublimation. According to Adler the first man suffered from feelings of inferiority (producing perhaps the need to prove to himself that he dared to commit some crime), and so did the second man (whose need was to prove to himself that he dared to rescue the child). I could not think of any human behavior which could not be interpreted in terms of either theory. It was precisely this fact—that they always fitted, that they were always confirmed—which in the eyes of their admirers constituted the strongest argument in favor of these theories. It began to dawn on me that this apparent strength was in fact their weakness."
"“The first is that the innocence of the victim is an irrelevance rather than something desired.”
Is it? Is it just coincidence that the victims in these concentration camps weren’t even the bankers they were ostensibly so mad at? That they were in fact children, invalids, housewives, and ordinary working people? If they really thought the bankers were to blame for their problems, why didn’t they go after the bankers and leave the innocents alone?
Answer: they needed to kill the innocents:)."
People can convince themselves of the most preposterous things if it makes them feel more comfortable. The resentment was not just against bankers but against ordinary shopkeepers and the like. Anyone that they could find a way to blame for their troubles. The Jews just happened to be the chosen victims, I think because they were a large and more successful than most group. Also having what could be portrayed as an external enemy served the purpose of reinforcing group solidarity. There were multiple reasons for scapegoating them. It is a mistake to seek unity in one underlying motivation.
What allowed the atrocity was that the Nazis convinced themselves that the declared outside group was less than human and that the usual moral considerations did not apply when dealing with them. I think this reinforced the motives behind the scapegoating. If you want to indulge in self pitying victimhood then I think it helps your feeling of being the innocent victims if you can see you supposed oppressors as not deserving of any moral consideration.
The key is that the Nazis referred to their victims as sub-humans. I cannot see how this can be seen as not bringing about massive weakening of the normal inhibitions against harming others..The Nazis were about self-pity and national solidarity. The first is a vice, the second in their case a virtue so much out of control that it became a vice. I see no need for anti-life or self-hatred to explain their actions.
“People can convince themselves of the most preposterous things if it makes them feel more comfortable … Anyone that they could find a way to blame for their troubles.
The point is, though, that “anyone” wasn’t chosen. A particular group with particular characteristics and scope was chosen. And the question is, “why that group and not another?”
If a person selects a group that doesn’t have the right characteristics, then it won’t serve the right purpose. In order to accomplish the desired goal, the group must be defined according to criteria that will serve the goal. The structure and scope of the myth itself reflects the feelings the myth is rationalizing. That’s why you have to look very carefully at the myth itself, to figure out what the myth is intended to accomplish.
Look at Occupy Wall Street, for instance. There was a similar sense of frustration, rage, alienation, and self-pity. But they didn’t target a race. They targeted “the wealthy.” That myth reflects particular feelings they were attempting to rationalize. A vastly different myth than a racist myth of the Germans. Intended to accomplish different psychological goals.
all I'm saying is, don't discount who they choose to pick on in trying to understand what they were feeling:). who you choose to pick on reflects how you're feeling. there's no getting around that.
Yes, but what I find hard to believe is any claim that people were deliberately targeted because they were seen as innocent and harmless. That sounds like arationalization brought about by identifying with the victims and trying to distance yourself from the perpetrators. That is quite an extraordinary clim and would requre quite strong evidence to support it.
well, the first step to making it a less than extraordinary claim would be considering another analogous precedents. for instance, judaism's scapegoat and sacrifice cult, christianity, and the connecticut shooter. can we agree that sometimes people deliberately target the innocent qua innocent?
Lloyd:
>Yes, but what I find hard to believe is any claim that people were deliberately targeted because they were seen as innocent and harmless.
Well of course Jews weren't seen as "innocent and harmless" in the first place. Anti-semitic attitudes have been endemic in European Christians for centuries, based on the story that the Jews killed Jesus. It reached industrial strength in Nazi Germany, but there had been no end of pogroms before. So they were already guilty in the eyes of their persecutors.
Looks like the "hating the good for being good" theory is having trouble even getting out of the gate...;-)
The question, Daniel, is why people chose to adopt antisemitism on the absurd basis that the Jews killed Jesus (blanking out the fact that Jesus was a Jew. And Paul. And Mary. And the disciples. All Jews). They knew that. But blanked it out because they wanted to hate ...
But the fact that Jews were already generally hated is consistent with Lloyd's theory - that victims can become lightning rods for any number of reasons, serious or trivial - and is problematic for the "hatred of the good" theory, which is that the perpetrators must already view the victims as innocent. Unfortunately for Rand's theory, the mass of Germans already harboured anti-Semitic views, so it was a case of piling on to the already-considered-guilty than targeting the innocent.
Of course theories can always be adapted to evade such falsification and cling to a pet belief, as Popper points out. How you choose to deal with the ugly facts that confront your beautiful theory is in the end an ethical question.
As to the question of why one religious faction or tribe might hate another to the point of killing them, this is still an open, wide ranging question. But generally there seems to be little evidence to support the idea that it's because they consider other tribe innocent, and hate themselves(!).
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