Posted on 05/01/2003 8:44:18 AM PDT by RJCogburn
In case you forgot:
Do you have a moral code? Do you have a philosophy? Can you prove them?
Hank
Many religious folk feel that the individual should always be subordinate to "god's will".
The same old 'social' conservative v. 'economic' conservative debate.
Sorry best I can do...I am off to work.
But again, that's simply asserted, not proven, and it hardly makes objectivism and hedonism mutually exclusive in any case. Why is it that "only the pleasure which proceeds from a rational value of judgment can be regarded as moral"? Can you prove that, and can you do it objectively, and not normatively?
I value pleasure above pain - and who can argue that this is an irrational preference? - and therefore I pursue pleasure as an end unto itself, taking care to rationally maximize it whenever possible, and minimize pain wherever possible. So why am I not an objectivist?
The problem is that Rand wants to cast some personal preferences as "rational" and others as "irrational". Well, good luck, but personal preferences just don't lend themselves to that sort of categorization. Saying that altruism is an "irrational" personal preference, and self-interest is "rational" is virtually indistinguishable from saying that preferring chocolate ice cream is "rational", but preferring vanilla is "irrational". At best, it's a completely arbitrary decision, not provable or demonstrable in any sort of rational way, and at worst, what it does is simply define the speaker's (Rand's, in this case) preferences as "rational", and everyone else's as "irrational".
I'm a bit of an "armchair philosopher" and I like most of the objectivist philosophy. However, I believe one has have to have an objective moral foundation in order for objectivism to work. We are obviously moral creatures - by that I mean we all know right from wrong. This is an objective truth, but objectivism does a horrible time of showing how to arrive at an "objective morality" from a purely logic based system. In my particualr view this is where God comes in. If there is a God, then there is an objective morality, and this explains why we all seem to know what is right and wrong. From this foundation one does rationally know what is in his/her rational best interests - one can see why it is wrong to iniate force and so forth. From this point objectivism, for the most part works, and works very well IMHO.
Correct. Her statement about man's only moral purpose being happiness is so ridiculous it made me laugh.
It cannot come from God either, since God has sometimes commanded his followers to slaughter babies...
I've seen that question posed them in various forms many times over the years. They NEVER answer it.
I know this is going to be difficult for you, but I will try to help you understand these little words:
He must exist for his own sake, neither sacrificing himself to others nor sacrificing others to himself.
In my post:
I quoted you: we can't sacrifice others to our own ends.
Then added:
Tell you what. Give me a quote where Ayn rand said that, I'll send you a million bucks. She never said we can't sacrifice others to our own end, or any other end. She said it was morally wrong to sacrifice others for any reason.
I know this is difficult for you, but "must not" and "can't" do not mean the same thing. "Must not" is what is meant by morally wrong.
You still haven't answered the questions I asked inPost #50?
Do you have a moral code? Do you have a philosophy? Can you prove them?
Hank
Rand claimed that reason (the faculty which identifies and integrates the material provided by mans senses) is mans only means of perceiving reality, his only source of knowledge, his only guide to action, and his basic means of survival.
For some reason, you have decided to part ways with Rand, and to exclude the evidence of "nature" (and human history) from your moral considerations.
Which is to say, I am apparently supposed to ignore what I see if it does not confirm your preconceived notions.
You're saying that made me laugh. So, what is man's moral purpose in your view?
Hank
I conclude that you have a tenuous grasp human nature. People laugh for many reasons....humor, sadness, shyness, discomfort, pain....
So many atheists love to use this as an example of why the God of the bible cannot be. But if the God of the bible is, and it is as it says, He is and He knows the beginning and the end. If heaven is as the bible says, and God so chooses to take those babies to heaven, they are/were much better off than they were living here among evil humans. God would know this.
You've seen the evil people like Susan Smith and others can do to children. How do you know the same or worse was not being done to the babies in a civilization that God deplored?
Will check for your answer later...I am really off to work this time...
Crime often pays. If self-interest is the sole standard for judging, the only rational rule is "don't get caught".
For one thing, "happiness" is a subjective thing -- hardly the basis for a supposedly objective philosophy based on the claim that "Reality exists as an objective absolute facts are facts, independent of mans feelings, wishes, hopes or fears."
Rand and her disciples make grand claims to being the "only logical philosophy." If "happiness" is the highest moral goal, then either this statement is invalid, or the "highest moral goal" is not what Rand says it is.
At any rate, the combination of the two claims forms a contradiction -- not what one expects of a truly logical philosophy.
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