Ayn Rand

“Yeah, "smackdown" might not be such a good term to include in the title thread.
By "servant", I mean being of service to other beings.
I like your examples, Ped.
#1. She is serving the cattle, to a degree, by helping them to feel more at ease before being slaughtered. She is also serving people who want to eat beef, by helping them get a better product. Service is moral and valuable, not necessarily specific to one aim. Like has been said about how many people can we really affect.
2. Knowing how to scam someone is knowing, intellectually about a weakness that you can exploit. It is not empathy, or the ability to feel what another is feeling. In fact, it is the opposite. It is the ability to turn off your feelings for a fellow human being so that you can exploit them.
To know what a person will enjoy in the building you are designing, (if you are trying to design the best possible building within your time/money restraints), you would have to be able to think with a perspective that is wider than just the one from the desk at your office. Or, so it seems to me.
I do know this, Arc, I don't let myself be constrained solely by logic. Is it obvious?
Bacpac, welcome back. So, Arc stands in the position of logic and responsibility on this thread? I won't disagree, but your statement is interesting, given that some are arguing for something other than selfishness. But then, that's the "me" generation talking. (BTW, I am as old as you, you crusty dog).”

“Dunadan:

I like your responses.

Definitions of words are always problems we we talk about things like empathy. I think most dictionaries are closer to your definition of "empathy" than to mine. So, you are right.

Some work in psychology used empathy in a slightly different way that I find to be quite useful and compelling. For me, empathy is the ability to understand, sense what someone is feeling. I separate this perceptive capacity from "compassion" that empathy usually entails. I think the two go together, but that they can be separated. I also think they have different psychological and evolutionary origins.

Take the primitive human hunter. To be a good hunter (or a good fly-fisherman) - at least with the equipment available during most of our evolutionary past - people ahve to be able to think like their prey... to read their emotions, anticipate their reactions. To some extent you have to get inside their heads. To some extent, this is true for competition with others in the same species. It is useful to be able to get inside your enemies head.

Of course for most people, compasssion follows from this kind of perceptive empathy. I think that is one reason why a lot of hunters end up really loving and respecting the animals they hunt. Its probably part of why hunted animals became sacred to so many primitive tribes (it is fascinating to look at the Sun dance and other Buffalo related religious rituals from this persepctive).

I better go! Since I don't punch a time clock, and my work is project/output based... I ain't spending anybody's time but my own. have a great w/e!!!”

“Is arclite really gone for the weekend?

Good.


A is non-A!

Contradictions exist!

Look at me! I’m not checking my premises!”

“Ahhh HAH! Caught you, violin! What will your Mommy and Daddy say if you can't play nice with the adults?

I lied; I’m back for a quickie


Ped, I can see why you said, "Arc: Your talk of logical rules and principles is concealing, not revealing. “ I have been poking in here the last few days and then quickly ducking back out. I didn’t pay as close attention to your syllogism post as I might have. The answer to your question is quite simple.

No need to go back to my 11:24pm post on 2/20/02, I’ll repeat it:


My syllogism was as follows:

Highly moral behavior has value (my assumption)
Pursuit of self-interest is not highly moral behavior (according to violin)
To violin, the pursuit of self-interest is of little value (my conclusion)

This is a valid categorical syllogism. To be valid, a categorical syllogism must satisfy five factors: 1. It must have Structure. 2. It must not succumb to The Four-Term Fallacy. 3. It must not succumb to The Fallacy of Faulty Exclusion. 4. It must not succumb to The Fallacy of the Undistributed Middle. 5. It must not succumb to The Fallacy of Illicit Distribution.


1. Structure- A categorical syllogism consists of two categorical propositions used as premises and a conclusion in categorical form drawn from the premises by inference.

Proposition #1 (minor premise)- Highly moral behavior has value
This is an A-Form proposition where all of one class is within the other. Highly moral behavior always has value. Value does not always include high moral behavior because many things other than high moral behavior have value.

This is logic diagramed: value (d) < highly moral behavior (u)

(Where (d) is the symbol for distributed- A term is distributed when it accounts for all members of the class in so far as its relationship to the other class is concerned. This pertains to both inclusionary and exclusionary relationships. And (u) is the symbol for undistributed- A term is undistributed when it accounts for less than all of a class in so far as its relationship to the other class is concerned.)

Proposition #2 (minor premise)- Pursuit of self-interest is not highly moral behavior. This is an E-Form proposition which names two classes and declares that the relationship between them is total exclusion i.e. that the two classes are entirely separate.

This is logic diagramed: Pursuit of self-interest (d) <| highly moral behavior (d)

Conclusion- To violin, the pursuit of self-interest is of little value

This is logic diagramed: Pursuit of self-interest (d) <| value (d)

As you can see, the syllogism satisfies the structure requirement.

So, to specifically answer your question about the following syllogism:

1) The category "moral" falls within the category "valuable"
2) The category "self interest" does not fall within the category of the moral.
3) Therefore the category of the self interest does not fall within the category of the valuable.

Yes that’s basically it but I would express it in logic terms:
1) The class "moral" is included within the class "value"
2) The class "self-interest" is exclusive of the class “ moral”
3) Therefore the class “self-interest” is exclusive of the class value.


If you don’t have rules, Ped, all you have is chaos. I had a coworker look at your drinking water word substitution syllogism. Neither of us sees your point.



You never responded to this, Ped. What do you think of this logic?

Highly moral behavior has value (my assumption)
Drinking water is not highly moral behavior (according to Ped)
To Ped, the drinking water is of little value (my conclusion).

If you don't believe that drinking water is highly moral (because it keeps you alive) then you really don't value yourself much.”

“Only individual self-interest motivates superior performance.
Teamwork requires the individual to sacrifice their interests to those of the group.
Businesses should forbid teamwork because it lowers the quality of individual achievement.”

“(1) Only individual self-interest motivates superior performance.

(2)Teamwork requires the individual to sacrifice their interests to those of the group.

(3)Businesses should forbid teamwork because it lowers the quality of individual achievement.”

“Great seats still available!”

“Arc.... that syllogism with water didn't work as an illustration from my point of view.... because it allowed you to insert the same interpretation: that self interested behavior is necessarily moral behavior. This is why I said we need to substitute all three terms.

I am suggesting that you make an agreement about which of the forms of the syllogism are correct for purposes of substituting all three rules. I think this is a fair test of competing hypothesis.

I say your syllogism is:

A is B
C is not A
Therefore C is not B.

Works all the time, if "is" is seen as an identity statement (i.e. that A is identical to B). Your use of "=" instead of "is" led you astray, because "=" also means identitical to. However, in ordinary language "is" can mean "falls within the category of" ("a robin is a bird") or "has the quality of ("a boulder is heavy"). "Pursuit of self itnerest is not highly moral" and "highly moral is valuable" are not identity statements.”

“Anyway Arc. I claim that your syllogism is not structurally sound and that it requires further "limitations" in order to work. Thus, if we substitute common backpack terms which meet the premises.. your syllogism will sometimes produce valid conclusions and sometimes it will produce fals concluseions.


An example of a valid conclusion would be:

A tent is a shelter
A backpack is not a tent.
Therefore a backpack is not a shelter.

Are ya with me? Is your syllogism of the form:

A is B
C is not A
Therefore C is not B.

If you disagree, please explain. Remember, it is not of the form "A = B" because you have already agreed that not all things of value are moral.”

“Last point Arc:

I have three points about your syllogism.

First: it slightly misrepresents what I took Violin to mean and can result in some confusion. Things that are self interested may be highly moral or they may not be highly moral. Thus a more accurate statement to say that some of the class "self-interest" falls ourside the class "highly moral."
2) I really prefer natural language, this language is still too stilted (people too often use stilted language to obscure their reasoning or intimidate others). 3) Nonetheless, the syllogism is demonstrably wrong.

For purposes of demonstration I plan to substitute terms for each of the key terms in your syllogism:

1) The class "moral" is included within the class "value"
2) The class "self-interest" is exclusive of the class “ moral”
3) Therefore the class “self-interest” is exclusive of the class "value".

Lets first do it as

1) The class "A" is included within the class "B"
2) The class "C" is exclusive of the class “ A”
3) Therefore the class “C” is exclusive of the class "B".

I propose to do this with both natural language (A is B, C is not A, Therefore C is not B) and the syllogism above and we will try it out.

Using tent, shelter and backpack with the formal wording, we would get:

1) The class "tents" is included within the class "shelters"
2) The class "backpacks" is exclusive of the class “ tents”
3) Therefore the class “backpacks” is exclusive of the class "shelters".

Anyway, this is an example of a case in which your syllogism works. Can we examine this more closely using the common language version and the logical language version side by side?”

“Given: God is Love.
Given: Love is Blind.
Therefore: Ray Charles is God.

Quod Erat Demonstrandum


I think one thing has been proven here beyond the glimmer of a doubt: if you want to engage in the exercise of Logic, for G-d's Sake Stick To Mathematics! Language yields nothing but mush.

This is why I switched majors from Psychology to Computer Science and never regretted it, *GRIN*

For example... How many surrealists does is take to change a lightbulb?

The fish.”

“Arc: I am awaiting your reply, or should I just go ahead?

Tilt: I think the joke is funniest when you say "Fish" or "Go fish" as if you were playing the card game.... and wait until the person has guessed (or given up).”

“Arc is from New Jersey
Arc moved to Florida
Therefore, Arc is confused.”

“Being sneaky is not moral,
Violin was trying to be sneaky.
Therefore Violin should apologize to everyone on this site.

Pedxing won't quit.
Pitbulls won't quit.
Therefore, Pedxing is dangerous!

Arc likes beautiful women.
Arc likes Ayn Rand.
Arc, get out of the bathroom and get back to work!”

“Its not that I wanna sink my teeth into anyone. Its just that I have this belief that sometimes careful examination of the issues can solve disagreements.

I do think Arclite made a huge and logic defying leap that he did not see because the leap went in the same direction as his beliefs. I believe that it should be quite easy to point out how illogical his leap was. I will start the thread after lunch unless I see some disagreement.”

“Pedxing, responding to your 2/24, 4:35 post:

1. I didn’t “…insert the same interpretation” into the syllogism. According to the science of logic, if you agree that highly moral behavior has value, and you believe that drinking water is not highly moral behavior, then the fact that you don’t value yourself very highly is the logical conclusion.

2. Are you suggesting that I create rules for my own type of syllogism? I am not expertly versed in the science of logic to develop proofs for that. The scientific rules have already been clearly explained.

3. You can say whatever you wish, about what the syllogism is, but this is not an opinion issue, nor 8is it based on feelings. The syllogism has been diagramed for you according to the scientific rules of logic.


Before responding to any of your other posts, let me just point out that there is a psychological pitfall into which you have fallen.

Mind-Set: “A pitfall that has cost the human race dearly is the mind-set, a tendency of the human mind to view a situation in a certain way despite contrary evidence.””

“Alright. I am starting the thread. Please let me know when I have taken a step with which you disagree. We can aregue about theory, but lets see the practice. The proof should be in the pudding.”

“"How does one lead a rational life in an irrational society?"

Hey swinger, have you been following along? Are you laughing hard enough yet?”

“(1) If Rand is correct, then you should perform any action which benefits you (on balance).

(2) Therefore, if Rand is correct, then if A benefits you only ever so slightly while killing a million innocent other people amidst gruesome agony, you should do A.

(3) You should not kill a million people, etc. just to achieve a minor benefit.

(4) Therefore, Rand is not correct.”

“Actually Violin, Rand would not approve of people doing things that interfere so severely in the lives of others. If she thinks its immoral to rip off someone elses work, dontcha think she would object to killing them?”

“Anyway, Arclite. Please look at the thread and tell me whether or not we are engaged in a fair test. If it is not fair, please say why.

Anyone else who has been following, please try to keep us both honest.

This isn't about being pro-Rand or anti-Rand.”

“Arclite:

I am not asking you to rule on the laws of logic. I am asking you to test your claims. If we agree to a simple test, the results will be incontrovertible and we will see who is locked into a mind set.
The same holds if you refuse the test.

If your syllogism is structurally sound, then the conclusion will always be true so long as the premises are true. If your reasoning has some hidden restrictions, extensions or inclusions then the syllogism will only hold some of the time (i.e. whent he terms fit your "hidden" restrictions). You failed to see the hidden restrictions when I showed them to you. This is the way I can show them to you.

If you want to learn something, just agree to the test or show me how I should change it to make it fair.”

“This is the part of the campfire discussion where I start searching through my pack for the Baccardi 151.”

“Q: Why did the non-Objectivist chicken cross the road?


















A: To mooch off the productive achievements of the Objectivist chickens who had already shown the way to the other side. (Fortunately, since A is A, a tunnel collapsed on it and it died as it deserved.)”

“Q: How many Objectivists does it take to change a light bulb?
























A: You second-hand, evading social metaphysician, Ayn Rand has already changed it. The world just hasn't noticed yet.”

“LOL! Nicely adapted Violin!!!!

Pass the Bacardi, Chili.

I hope Arclite can see through his haze of jargon to how plain and simply wrong he wasthis time. Despite my reign of error (typos and cut and paste), my disproof should be easy to follow.”

“Zero Wing Strikes From Afar.”

“Kleetn is Batman.
Batman is fictional.
Therefore Dunadan is Haiku Master.

Degeneration
Chili is requesting rum
Ban syllogism.”

“The right side of the brain controls the left side of the body,
If someone is right handed, that means the left brain is dominant,
Therefore only Left handed people are in their right minds.`”

“ya'll remind me of the bleeding heart liberals in AS..
I think Rand's point was that highly successful people achieve results from an inner motivation that is neither moral or immoral (it is amoral as Violin points out).

Does objectivsm even deal with morality?”

“I ain't no Ayn Rand expert, but I think objectivists talk about two kinds of morality (or ethics):

1) There is the kind she embraces which creation/production vs. parasitism (this might also be seen as a distinction between health and disease). To create, to develop, to grow is good, right and healthful.

2) There is also the false (unhelathy) morality which is used as a form of social control, the worst of which are the kinds of socialistic moralities which call for sacrifice and self denial on the part of the creative and productive. This kind of morality opposes the healthiest drives of the most outstanding individuals.”

“It's 'better' to have a heart of stone, I suppose.”

“All syllogisms have three parts. Therefore, this is not a syllogism.”

“I said "amoral" first.

Which is neither good, nor bad. ;-)”

“Ped, I agree with you completely. I think that's a good way to describe Rand's take on morality.

Her concept of "immorality" (if you will) not only calls for sacrifice and self denial on the part of creative and productive individuals but also encourages "immoral" people to be parasites on others.

I "feel" (check that word) that people often confuse selfish with self-destructive. It does not serve self-interest to harm others, society, or the environment.

If my wife (hypothetically speaking of course) does all of the housework, some people may describe my behavior as selfish. But if I value the relationship, my behavior does not serve my self-interest, it is self-destructive. My wife will become resentful of my behavior (I have this on expert authority, as I've seen this sort of thing play out in Dear Abby all the time).”

“"It does not serve self-interest to harm others, society, or the environment."

If only that were true! All I can say is, "Dream On, Brother!" LOL

Unfortunately, Arclite, some people are just no damn good and they think they can get away with anything. Tune in to the hearing set to begin at 9:30 AM (eastern) today on C-SPAN. There ought to be some fireworks... Jeff Skilling will be on the same panel with Sherron Watkins.

Also, be on the look out for "The Enron Wars" in April's Vanity Fair. The author (Marie Brenner) was on Washington Journal just now and it sounded like she had really done her homework.”

“But Tilt, that is the point. It doesn't matter what they think, the end result can be measured. The end result does not serve their self-interest, it is self-destructive. As I'm sure that many of those Enron executives will figure out after they receive their legal bills. Many carreers will be ended, and some may go to jail. Certainly those consequences are not in their self-interest.

Even if none of them were to have legal consequences, hurting others for personal gain does nothing for self-interest. Many people believe that it destroys a person spiritually as well.”

“What percentage of criminals are never caught? Even if they are caught, is the money recovered?

Crime doesn't pay?

You're hallucinating, LOL

What does the DEA always say? At best only 10% of the drug trade is 'interdicted'. At Best.

And I guess all the people who are responsible for all of those Superfund sites will pay in the end...

With Bad Karma? If you're into the Western religious tradition, you may believe that they will burn in Hell, but on this particular plane of existence, I think they got away.

They're gone, dude. They took the money and they're Gone, LOL. Their investors sold the stock at a profit and they're gone, too.

So who pays? WE do: the Superfund clean-ups, the Resolution Trust Corporation, and thousands of smaller rip-offs every year... while their progeny have trust funds to salve their consciences.”

“When people are actually acting, or deciding how they should act, they don’t know what the end result will be. I’m sure most criminals act out of what they perceive to be their own rational self-interests when they set out to harm others.”

“Tilt, I agree that the people "who get away with it" don't pay monetarily. I don't believe in hell, so I won't go there. But I do believe in spirituality. If I do something to hurt someone else, my spirituality suffers. Some folks call this a conscience.

Now I can't speak for you, Tilt, but hurting someone else bothers me. Fear of being caught and brought to "justice" would bother me. Pedxing can help me out here, but I believe that people who don't have these feelings are called sociopaths. I don't think that sociopathic behavior is in someone's self-interest.”

“Don’t people have a pretty good capacity to deceive themselves into thinking that their actions are pure so their conscience can stay clean?

If we go mixing consideration of others into what is meant by ‘self-interest’, isn’t that really muddying the waters?”

“Gosh!!!!
"while their progeny have trust funds to salve their consciences."

How do you argue with that!!!”

“I'm not sure that's "mixing", violin. But it opens up some interesting philosophical areas.

We can all be good at rationalization at times. A healthy person strives not to deceive himself. Honest self-examination helps here. I have some spiritual "guides", who's opinions I value, that I ask for help when I think I'm fooling myself. I've got better at this through practice. My warning buzzer goes off in most cases. My friends are there to help me if I ask their advice. Or through general communication, they can usually see through my BS. I value this type of friendship and guidance.

Taking a critical look at my own thoughts and behaviors can sometimes be painful, but it's always in my self-interest.”

“I see now that my time would be better spent juggling jellyfish.

The 'logic thread' was a CLUE, LOL”

“Can we lurch in another, less controversial (ha-ha) direction?

The following is a statement attributed to Ayn Rand at www.aynrand.org:


Q: What should be done about the killing of innocent people in war?

AR: This is a major reason people should be concerned about the nature of their government. If by neglect, ignorance, or helplessness, they couldn't overturn their bad government and choose a better one, then they have to pay the price for the sins of their government—as all of us are paying for the sins of ours.

That's why we have to be interested in the philosophy of government and in seeing, to the extent we can, that we have a good government. A government is not an independent entity: it's supposed to represent the people of a nation.

If some people put up with dictatorship—as some do in Soviet Russia and as they did in Germany—they deserve whatever their government deserves.

The only thing to be concerned with is: who started that war? And once you can establish that it is a given country, there is no such thing as consideration for the "rights" of that country, because it has initiated the use of force, and therefore stepped outside the principle of rights.


It would seem to me that Rand would have us believe that the victims of the attack on 9/11 'deserved it' because of the policies of their government.

It seems that, to Rand, the only thing that matters is ‘who started it?’. After that, all sorts of attrocity can be condoned.

What do you think of this?”

“I disagree with her.”

“In the mental health profession, there is a reasonable debate as to whether you can have happy psychopaths/sociopaths. I don't think this can be proven one way or the other. All the psychopaths/sociopaths I have met have been unhappy, but then the nature of my clinical work means that I would be likely to meet only those who had been caught, or were miserable.

Like Arclite, I value the examined life. I think that psychopaths and sociopaths have huge blind spots... they have a diminished existence. I would rather be a miserable mensch than a happy psychopath. I believe that is in my self interest.

While I doubt that there are any happy sociopaths, I do not doubt that there were happy slave owners. Similarly, there have been warrior cultures in which people seemed to have enjoyed lives filled with raping, looting and plundering. Some cultures have promoted it. Here the question gets tricky: did slave owning in some ways diminish the slave owners? Did lives of plunder and barbarity diminish the Barbarians in some way?

Here we get into one of the core questions of philosophy: "What is the good life?" I do not think there is an answer, but I think we gain a lot by asking it.


(or dost he think he is tilting at windbags?)”