Ask an objectivist

[TackleTheWorld]

Common belief:  Objectivists are atheists because we enjoy judging for ourselves and find logic valuable.  Faith asks that you turn off your critical mind and we really cant part with ours.  We say humans need our minds to live and consider it destroying the only self we have if we abandon our own judgment.

How is it logical to decide, based on faith alone, that there is no god?  You can't possibly know that.  The statement "no deity of any sort exists, anywhere" is not logical.

Taking that on faith is no more rational than when a theist declares without evidence that there is a god.

A truly rational person must always be agnostic about anything he has no knowledge of.

Joe

[TackleTheWorld]

First I thought Joe was just contradicting simple logic, but he may be expressing a valid point.

He is correct that there are things that can't be known. 
Let's call them unknowables.  They may be 1 discovered in the future or they may be 2 non-existent.
But we don't have any evidence either way.

How should you act toward unknowables?
Assume they exist, but just haven't been proven yet?
Assume they are non-existent?

I say neither.  They are outside the realm of human knowledge.  Out of bounds.  Not to be the basis for any judgment.  You can have fun speculating and looking for more evidence,
but you can't logically base any conclusion on them.
And you really can't validate any action with them

[Raineyrocks]

First I thought Joe was just contradicting simple logic, but he may be expressing a valid point.

He is correct that there are things that can't be known. 
Let's call them unknowables.  They may be 1 discovered in the future or they may be 2 non-existent.
But we don't have any evidence either way.

How should you act toward unknowables?
Assume they exist, but just haven't been proven yet?
Assume they are non-existent?

I say neither.  They are outside the realm of human knowledge.  Out of bounds.  Not to be the basis for any judgment.  You can have fun speculating and looking for more evidence,
but you can't logically base any conclusion on them.
And you really can't validate any action with them

That makes sense to me.  It's like wondering what happens to everything/body when it/they die, there is no evidence just speculation.  My mother was going through this, "why are we here, where do we go after we die" thing and I told her you can never know the answers to those questions so why spend time being consumed by the question. 
What I really like is when I feel things, no amount of reading or talking can compare to feeling something.  I have some personal experiences of this if anyone wants to know what they were just let me know.

[dalebert]

How should you act toward unknowables?
Assume they exist, but just haven't been proven yet?
Assume they are non-existent?

I say neither.

Brilliant! Have a Guiness!

I think that's the kind of attitude you need to have to continue learning and avoid mental stagnation.

[MaineShark]

I say neither.  They are outside the realm of human knowledge.  Out of bounds.  Not to be the basis for any judgment.  You can have fun speculating and looking for more evidence,
but you can't logically base any conclusion on them.
And you really can't validate any action with them

Exactly.  Hence, agnosticism.

Joe

[TackleTheWorld]

Joe,
Strangely enough, you and Ed Brown argued exactly that same point with me today.

[Caleb]

OK ... I'll bite ...

It seems to me that Objectivism has no real basis for morality.  You can assert that I have to respect others because they have a right to life ... but what if it doesn't appear to be in my rational self interest to do so?  When I look at the animal kingdom, I see a lot of "rational self interest" exhibited, but not a lot of respect for life.  Same thing in our species as well.  We already see lots of rational self interest.  And a lot of violence too.

It seems to me that it is in my rational self interest to try to be the majority and then use that status to take stuff from others who are not fortunate enough to be in the majority.  Might makes right. 

And isn't it curious that is exactly the system we have.  It seems to me that the system we have right now is a direct result of rational self interest (selfishness) as the highest ideal. 

[dalebert]

What we have now isn't much different than a god-based morality system, i.e. some degree of fear of punishment for unacceptable behavior by someone with authority; authority because they have the power to punish.

It's actually in my self interest to have other people around who have skills I don't have. It's a strength of the human race, and some other animals also, that we work together effectively to be stronger than any individual would be. Some sense of law is necessary for that strength to work and we all realize that on some level, and that in turn is linked to some instinctive desire to further the human race. That's seen throughout the animal kingdom- traits that further the species over other species if necessary, and sometimes even over the self, as in some mothers who will sacrifice themselves to protect their young. It makes sense actually. Traits that are counter to the continuation of a species would cause that species to die out. Whether humans deserve to survive as a species will likely depend on the extent to which we're able to avoid and/or prevent behavior that's destructive to the species as a whole.

A key advantage of objectivism over other morality systems is that it's got a very clear basic foundation. It encourages voluntary cooperation to the benefit of everyone involved. It never assumes that one person is smarter or more right than another person to justify one having authority over another, or to justify the stifling of free discussion. Therefore, force and fraud are "wrong" and force is only justified in response to force. Is it perfect? I don't know that we'll ever find a perfect morality system and I hope we never stop trying. Meanwhile, it's the best I've heard of and I think it's mankind's best hope for prosperity and the survival of the species.

[TackleTheWorld]

It seems to me that Objectivism has no real basis for morality.

Rational self-interest is more like the goal of ethics, rather than the base. 

Objectivism starts with one axiom and builds a whole philosophy on it. Ethics is the three or four levels up.  But skipping ahead I'll say we don't agree that might makes right.

The axiom is essentially the law of logic. (We call it A=A.)  A thing cannot be A and non-A at the same time in the same respect.  Logic is the base of our metaphysics, epistemology and ethics.  It's practically criminal for an objectivist to appeal to emotion.

HINT: Here's how to totally peeve an objectivist, tell us we've made a contradiction.  It's the atheist equivalent of a mortal sin, blasphemy, and going to heaven and killing god.

[Lloyd Danforth]

It sure pissed Rand off the two times I witnessed the same person accuse her of a couple of them.   She spoke, annually, I think, at The Ford Hall Forum in Boston.  We went to the last two.  My friend got picked to ask a question.  One she could not answer involving a contradiction of hers.  She got flustered and moved on.  You could feel the little hum of conversations starting as people witnessed this.  The following year, her last at FHF,  miraculously, he gets picked again.  He comes up with a new contradiction!  Rand immediately employed 'The Argument From Intimidation', and a whole bunch of us walk out.

[Caleb]

Rational self-interest is more like the goal of ethics, rather than the base. 

Objectivism starts with one axiom and builds a whole philosophy on it. Ethics is the three or four levels up.  But skipping ahead I'll say we don't agree that might makes right.

No, I wouldn't expect that you would agree with the statement that "might makes right."  It does seem to me, however, that "might makes right" is the ultimate conclusion of any system of thought based on the concept of rational self interest.

Now, you say to me "rational self interest is the goal of ethics, rather than the base."  Fair enough.  But I don't think I understand the difference. If rational self interest is the goal, then once the goal is achieved does not the goal become the basis for behavior?  A goal implies that you are striving for it, but have not yet reached it.  Once a goal is reached, it ceases to become a goal and becomes realized.  Once "rational self interest" is realized, would it not be the means by which behavior is actualized?

Objectivists point to "rational self interest" (selfishness) as a high ideal, and demean "altruism."  Both of these words denote a motivation for an action.  I contend that motivations, in and of themselves, are irrelevant.  Morality is what matters.  A dictator who wants to control people can as easily appeal to "rational self interest" as he can to "altruism."  In fact, appeals are often made to both simultaneously in any thoroughly controlling system (be it political, social, or religious.)  Unless an individual is committed to a strong morality, neither his rational self interest nor his altruism is any certain indicator of a moral course of action.

Tackle, you (commendably) did not attempt to go around the issue by attempting to show that what may appear to be in someone's "rational self interest" is in fact not so.  This is a method that objectivists often use.  They may say, "well it would appear that killing that person is in your rational self interest, but in actuality that is not true because ..." and then they give a complicated reason.  I might even agree with the reasoning, but the fact is that this requires a rather intelligent person to differentiate between all the many pros and cons of any particular action.  Not even the very wise can see all ends.  We each have different levels of skill in determining what the ultimate outcome will be, but not even the wisest person is always right.  It would seem to me, then, that if this method of argumentation is the proper one, that only geniuses and sages could rely on rational self interest as a method of directing their behavior, and even then it would not lead to any certainty, only a "best guess."

[Lloyd Danforth]

There is a philosophy out there that leads to a certainty?

[dalebert]

Either altruism or selfishness in excess can be harmful to society. It really doesn't take incredible intelligence, at least on a basic level. This is instinctive in a social creature. We are, to some extent, altruistic by nature and that's a good thing, again, as long as it isn't taken to excess. You could view communism as a excess of altruism, sublimating the individual so much that they cannot be as productive as they could be if they were free. A free person may not contribute exactly what a group wants them to, but they are more likely to achieve their full potential if they are allowed to follow their own heart.

Back when I considered myself an atheist, a friend tried to convince me that the fact that we are inclined to not kill babies is proof that God is guiding us with a sense of right and wrong; that without the influence of a god, we would be these incredibly selfish beasts because there would be no true right and wrong and we'd just do whatever floated our boat at any moment. That's ridiculous. The huge majority of the population is inclined to be protective of, or at least not aggressive to babies. This shouldn't be suprising. A social species wouldn't survive if that were the predominant behavior. The theory of natural selection alone can explain this. Even if you don't believe in the theory, and it has holes (not as much as creationism), it completely disproves the notion that a god must exist to explain innate altruistic tendencies. In fact, altruistic tendencies are to be expected in a species that lists an aptitude for cooperation as one of it's greatests strengths.

I'm agnostic leaning toward deist, so I'm not married to the notion that there is no absolute right and wrong and I value philosophical discussions that will lead us toward a greater knowledge of that. However, the idea that right and wrong can exist simply in the context of a goal, such as the survival of the human race, is completely viable and rational. In other words, it may very well be that the concepts of right and wrong are human creations that serve a specific purpose. It's "right" if it tends to increase the prosperity of the human race and the likelyhood that we will survive. It's "wrong" if it's ultimately counter-productive to that goal.

[dalebert]

I just realized that after that long post, I failed to tie my points in to objectivism. I once joked with another objectivist friend of mine that charity was a vice that I allowed myself some indulgence in. He corrected me. He said as long as you're doing it for the right reasons, i.e. it's giving you personal fulfillment, and it doesn't involve force or fraud, then it's not counter to objectivism. Objectivism is about being true to your nature. It's about not sublimating the individual to the collective will. My point above was that some degree of altruism IS in fact being true to your nature for most human beings.

[TackleTheWorld]

Now, you say to me "rational self interest is the goal of ethics, rather than the base."  Fair enough.  But I don't think I understand the difference. If rational self interest is the goal, then once the goal is achieved does not the goal become the basis for behavior?  A goal implies that you are striving for it, but have not yet reached it.  Once a goal is reached, it ceases to become a goal and becomes realized.  Once "rational self interest" is realized, would it not be the means by which behavior is actualized?

Maybe "goal" isn't the best word to describe it either.

Listen to four pillars of objectivist thought, you'll start to see why we embrace selfishness and reject altruism.