New at Reason
Ronald Bailey says: Don't worry, that cricket-shaped blob on your MRI scan is just your conscience.
Editor's Note: We invite comments and request that they be civil and on-topic. We do not moderate or assume any responsibility for comments, which are owned by the readers who post them. Comments do not represent the views of Reason.com or Reason Foundation. We reserve the right to delete any comment for any reason at any time.
-
It seems to be a flawed question. If the weight of a single person is enough to stop the trolley, then it wouldn't matter which option you chose in the second scenario because either way only one person would die. Switching tracks seems like a logical way to stop a trolley, throwing someone onto the tracks does not. Indeed, that's why 5 people are in jeopardy, no?
-
No, that's why they specify it's a *fat* stranger.
-
They used to call it the "lifeboat scenario."
Ayn Rand was asked about it once. She dismissed its relevance by noting that people don't spend their lives in lifeboats, that extreme life-and-death circumstances are rare in a normal, modern, civilized society, hence exercises such as these teach us little about human morality. -
Maybe the moral difference stems from the fact that in the first scenario, both the group-of-five and the individual are doing something inherently risky--standing close enough to a trolley-track to be in danger of being hit-- whereas in the second scenario the fat stranger was NOT doing anything inherently dangerous, and would be safe unless someone else shoved him.
-
We've got another one!
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2006/01/26/another-payola-scandal_n_14505.html?p=2#comments
Do you think Stephen Milloy has a conscience?
And why doesn't this ever happen with writers who appear in the American Prospect? -
As I think more about it, couldn't the distinction in my last post also explain why, under the rules of "civilized" warfare, killing civilians is considered so much worse than killing soldiers? The soldiers put themselves in danger simply by being soldiers, but the civilians are supposed to be kept out of it.
-
No, that's why they specify it's a *fat* stranger.
How fat is fat enough to stop a trolley but thin enough to push? -
Rand was, of course, utterly wrong about that. "Life and death circumstances" are ubiquitous; we're just typically able to ignore them because we're not literally plopped in front of a trolley switch.
-
Who is really surprised to learn that Ayn Rand would ignore a question whose answer can't fit into a neat black-or-white category?
-
Jennifer is anti-life. ;-)
-
I always thought the "people don't live on lifeboats" retort to be the philosphical equivalent of "let them eat cake," i.e., born of willful ignorance of the constant trade-offs certain people face every day.
By the way, isn't there some liability associated with pushing someone on a track, even if to save others? -
The article mentions that in the "push the fat guy" scenario, the areas of the brain dealing with empathy become active, and that this conflicts with the "cold, rational" moral calculating areas.
I'm wondering: what about the areas of the brain that deal with physical conflict? My first flash of thought involved having to push around a guy big enough to stop a trolley. You'd have to summon a lot of strength for that. So it seems that areas of the brain responsible for some of the "lower" cognitive processes -- more along the fight or flight lines -- would also be implicated when considering this choice.
But knowing as the subject does that this is a moral (ie -- higher cognitive) decision, there is a conflict between the higher and lower functions that occurs while considering simultaneously the (a) morality and (b) logistics of carrying out this choice.
If so, then that choice might be getting avoided on cognitive dissonance grounds. -
Rand was onto something with that lifeboat business, though -- something about hard cases making bad law.
-
Jesse, I don't know the context of Rand's conversation, but was she being asked to consider a matter of law, or simply being asked to answer a hypothetical question in the Rand Collective equivalent of a dorm-room bull session?
-
H-Dawg:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Omission_(criminal) -
Call me a stick in the mud, but I'm going to say it again:
I've done fMRI research, which means I've also read many, many studies like this. Be very suspicious of anyone who makes strong claims based on studies such as this one. I'm sure there's some truth to some of his conclusions, but the field is too new, and there is little agreement among studies in (...memory, decision-making, and particularly emotion...) to make any real claims.
Not to mention that the whole idea that fMRI is an accurate indicator of thought is questioned by some...and not to mention that all fMRI studies overlook individual differences in function AND structure by statistically averaging brains and activations.
So I'm not saying there's no value in this study, just that we shouldn't draw any final conclusions about anything based on these studies, yet. -
While we do live in a world with constant life or death decisions, we rarely face decisions where the problematic costs and benefits are so clear cut. What makes you think that pushing him will actually succeed in saving them? What makes you think that this is the only way to save them?
Our choices are rarely binary, and success is rarely assured. If the choice seems binary, maybe you need to take a closer look. Or maybe you need to do like Captain Kirk and reprogram the simulation. -
I think the fat guy thing is a bad hypothetical because it is tough to tune out some considerations that kind of mess things up:
- pushing the fat guy increases the risk you will fall out yourself.
- the fat guy may grab you and throw you out.
- the five people might get out of the way -- if you threw the fat guy right as the people cleared the trax -- uh-oh!
- you might want to brace for the collision instead of running around the car
- you might want to avert your eyes to avoid forming visual memories of the carnage -- throwing the fat guy would not be helpful
Even beyond tough cases make made law, this hypothetical is just plain poorly crafted. Not only do you have to put yourself in a far-fetched situation, but you have to ignore a lot of what you might really be thinking about if you suddenly found yourself in the situation. -
I can honestly say that since I read the Rand response over 20 years ago I have never been called upon to push a fat man before a moving train.
Jennifer, perhaps you should locate and read the passage in question before you give your predictable black and white reply. -
I think the real moral question is "If I can make a saleable video of the trolley crash with my camera phone, should I do that or play hero?":)
-
Jennifer, perhaps you should locate and read the passage in question before you give your predictable black and white reply.
Isn't that just another way of saying "Jennifer, perhaps you assume that what I said before isn't true?" I have too much faith in you, Ed, to go researching and confirming every little thing you say here. -
linguist:
I don't have the same experience as you, but intuitively I agree. It could have something to do with the racial bias test linked from a Slate article yesterday that told me I hate black people because I couldn't click buttons on my keyboard fast enough. -
btw, the test is available here; I'd be interested to see how some of the other Reason peeps score (I'm assuming this hasn't come up in any other threads).
-
In the first scenario, one would perceive that the lone person would be killed by the trolley, in the second, one would be doing the killing personally.
-
Here's a snippet I was able to find:
The following passage is from "The Ethics of Emergencies" which comes from her book The Virtue of Selfishness.
"If the [drowning] person to be saved is a stranger, it is morally proper to save him only when the danger to one's own life is minimal; when the danger is great, it would be immoral to attempt it.... Conversely, if one is drowning, one cannot expect a stranger to risk his life for one's sake, remembering that one's life cannot be as valuable to him as his own."
"The principle that one should help men in an emergency cannot be extended to regard all human suffering as an emergency and to turn the misfortune of some into a first mortgage on the lives of others. Poverty, ignorance, illness and other problems of that kind are not metaphysical emergencies. By the metaphysical nature of man and of existence, man has to maintain his life by his own effort."
"Observe that the advocates of altruism are unable to base their ethics on any facts of men's normal existence and that they always offer 'lifeboat' situations as examples from which to derive the rules of moral conduct. ('What should you do if you and another man are in a lifeboat that can carry only one?' etc.) The fact is that men do not live in lifeboats-and that a lifeboat is not the place on which to base one's metaphysics." -
Go read Rand's Ethics of Emergencies.
It's in Virtue of Selfishness, her only book on ethics. -
That seems an entiely resaonable answer
-
That seems an entiely resaonable comment.
But each of us in any particular situation will decide based upon our own values and presence of mind. -
Reaction time is a factor in this, so please pay attention. Now, answer as quickly as you can.
It�s your birthday. Someone gives you a calfskin wallet. How do you react? -
Oh, thanks, my wallent is due for replacement.
-
You�ve got a little boy. He shows you his butterfly collection plus the killing jar. What do you do?
-
I'd take him to the doctor.
-
Show him your 8x10 color print of a smimlar butterfly taken with your 8 Megapixel dSLR and printed on a dye sublimation printer. Hah!
-
It�s your birthday. Someone gives you a calfskin wallet. How do you react?
Say "thank you" and then see if there's any money inside. -
Fuck it. We're all replicants, and we know it.
-
I check to see if he's properly documenting the location/date of the capture for each one. Without that kind of detail, its just pretty butterflies, but with it, it's information.
If you're the ONDCP, you get him to pee in a cup and show him a film on huffing polish remover and take his kill-jar and replace it with a brick, which will be just as effective at killing, but cannot be used to get high. -
So Rand's point, that one's own life should be considered to have greater value than someone else's life, seems to be based on the proposition that each individual's self-interested, emotionally-driven ranking of moral priorities should be the basis for making moral decisions. You should treat your own life as the most important, because it is the most important to you. That guy over there should treat his life as the most important, because it is the most important to him. And he is right, and you are right.
How did a philosophy that relies so much on each individual's subjective preferences to guide moral reasoning come to known as "objectivism?" -
Ooh ohh! Your mother in law gives you a belt buckle that will make you front heavy and make bending over painful. What do you do?
-
How did a philosophy that relies so much on each individual's subjective preferences to guide moral reasoning come to known as "objectivism?"
The survival instinct is not subjective, it's an imperative.
Its objective because that value is the same for each person and does not vary by whim. -
kgsam -- I think the "dirtying one's hands" element is the key to how most people parse the "Fat Guy" scenario, but arguably it has a little more logical basis. By pulling the track switch, you set in motion the events that will spare the group while killing the individual, but the actual death is still slightly removed in time, allowing one to hold out the hope that the lone victim will move or see the train and duck or something. Pushing the fat guy _requires_ his death to spare the others, and makes you the direct cause, which is probably more objectionable to most people.
Jon Bristow -- Did you ever happen to see the article about "Voight-Kampff testing" the California Recall Gubernatorial Candidates?
http://www.thewavemag.com/pagegen.php?pagename=article&articleid=24031 -
True, Kgsam, but Objectivism also includes subjective judgments like why certain types of art or architecture are inherently superior to others. Not until I read "The Fountainhead" did I realize that my fondness for Victorian architecture makes my very existence antithetical to freedom.
-
Joe, your mistake is in the line: emotionally-driven ranking of moral priorities....
Objectivism is the polar opposite of emotionally based thinking. Shame on you. -
Lifeboat and trolley type hypothetical cases are intended, among other things, to examine whether our moral intuitions and judgments are logically consistent and coherent. The underlying but rarely acknowledged premise here is that they should be. Whether that 'should' is itself a moral concern or merely an expression of the emotive desire of ethicists who, being intellectuals, are fond of consistency and coherence is an interesting question.
While it is true that hard cases make bad law, the law routinely encounters bad cases that must nonetheless be adjudicated. That, in turn, raises the perplexing question of proper judicial interpretation, especially in common law nations. In any case though, a charitable reading of Rand and others who have made the same point is to acknowledge that our moral rules and intuitions often do break down at some extreme precisely because it is an extreme and we thankfully therefore don't have to worry too much about it.
As Jennifer noted, there is some moral weight to the fact that our fat friend is not already on the track and that we must intentionally put him in harm's way in a slightly different way than we put the one person who, but for us, was 'safely' on the 'wrong' track in the first place. Among other things, this raises the interplay between our purely consequentialist instincts and our often conflicting sense of right and wrong regardless of purely utilitarian results.
What I found most interesting in Mr. Bailey's article, however, was his conclusion. If science could indeed "tell us more about why we make the moral decisions that we do," it could do so only at the cost of denying that they were moral decisions in the first place. Indeed, it is precisely because science cannot "tell us what is right and what is wrong morally speaking" that it can at best tell us how we go about making those decisions, not why. -
Jon, with Jennifer and I (and others) on this thread, that would be Cylons. Especially on Friday.
Jennifer, I just re-read The Fountainhead, and I spent plenty of time laughing at the idea that modern architecture is morally superior to traditionally based architecture. I like the idea of taking a more dynamic approach to building and being willing to throw out the conventions of the past to take advantage of new materials, etc., but tossing in a few columns as decoration isn't some huge sin, either. My big problem with Rand and Objectivists in general is the nonrational, mystical component of their philosophy. I agree with plenty of their ends, but I find the reasoning to be frequently quite suspect (I'm still trying to figure out Rand's weird ideas about sex and relationships, which were portrayed as exactly the opposite of her stated philosophy). Besides, I like the Parthenon :) -
Besides, I like the Parthenon :)
So did Rand. She just thought it a waste of time, energy and mind to keep copying it. -
Read Introduction to Objectivist Epistemology,
The Anti-Industrial Revolution, Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal, and The Virtue of Selfishness.
That's the philosophy. Objectivism as a system did not exist until these books were published (mid to late 60s). The rest is window dressing, or worse, publishing contract obligations. -
My point is that it's not necessarily a "statist" or "looter" aesthetical choice to be boring and traditional in architecture. I think lines between aesthetics and ethics can be blurred, but I just don't see it being the case here. There's also the whole idea of secondary meaning to certain architecural features that have a current value. Banks and columns, for instance (though that's an example that's almost not true anymore--as a former Washington Mutual "junior" executive, I can say with some authority that banks can now eschew columns for "quirkiness" with success).
-
I'm still trying to figure out Rand's weird ideas about sex and relationships, which were portrayed as exactly the opposite of her stated philosophy
Considering Rand's relationship with her husband, the sexual mores of 'The Fountainhead' make perfect sense if you just imagine a woman with a Natasha Fatale accent saying "You haff fife minutes to dominate and subdue me, like a real man, and if I'm not dominated vithin fife minutes I'll vucking emasculate you, dahlink. Stop cowering, you vucking pussy." -
To be fair to Rand, not every philosophy is strong in every area. In fact, few are. I'm a big fan of Stoicism, but it's generally weak in metaphysics. Oh, well. I tend to like utilitarian philosophies that deal with life and ethics. Ontology and epistemology are interesting, but they have less immediate value. Unless I'm the only entity in the universe. Then they have a somewhat greater value.
-
Ed,
"Objectivism is the polar opposite of emotionally based thinking." I'm sure you like to tell yourself that, but that statement is objectively false.
The assumption that one's own life is always more valuable than those of others is by definition emotional and subjective. Note that this assumption is, in the philosophy, a universal assumption, and is not arrived at by considering evidence rationally. It is emotional, rather than rational, and it is subjective (based on criteria that are unique to each individual), rather than objective (based on universal, unvarying criteria). No shame here. You're going to have to do better than "nuh-uh." -
To be fair to Rand, not every philosophy is strong in every area.
But didn't Rand say that Objectivism is so perfectly reasoned that if you accept one part of it, you must accept it all? That, more than anything else, is where I have a serious problem with her. -
In other words, Ed, under objectivist philosophy, an 80 year old unemployed pedophile with galloping TB is supposed to consider, without even having to think about the evidence, his own life to be more valuable than that of a thirteen year old super-genius who brings meals to old ladies and is a year away from curing cancer. The only reason provided for coming to this conclusion is the subjective attachment that the pedophile has to his own life, an attachment that he does not feel for other peoples' lives.
Subjective, and emotional. -
Actually, Jen, she doesn't say that.
But, and I say this once again to the peanut gallery, having a problem with her and a problem with the philosophy are two different things. -
having a problem with her and a problem with the philosophy are two different things.
The philosphy has its problems too. The ideals she proposed in "Atlas Shrugged" would work only if every single human being were ruled entirely by logic and reason, as opposed to prejudice, nepotism, spite, religious zealotry, Freudian rationalizations or any other such thing.
In its own way, it's like the flip side of Communism, which would indeed have led to paradise on earth if only human nature could be completely changed so that people behaved the way Marx said they should, as opposed to the way they actually do. -
If wanted to be an Objectivist--which I don't (being a Pro Libertatist is hard enough)--I'd do to Rand what every student of philosophy does to his "teacher": I'd take what I liked and discard or explain away what I didn't. As I said before, Rand has some interesting points to make, but I think there's too much irrationality to her philosophy to make it coherent enough to actually adopt. It's too bad she had so many wacked out ideas to go with her good ones, but what do you expect from a child of a totalitarian society?
joe, I don't think the pro-individual stand is necessarily an emotional one. It can be, just as collectivism can be. However, there are rational reasons for supporting either viewpoint. I happen to think the pro-individual position has certain advantages, but I'm not so individualist that I don't think of things like the good of humanity on occasion. Also, I think it might be unfair to characterize the pro-individual position as "I'm better than all of you other people". I think it's based more on "Why do all of you other people think you have the right to control my life?" That's a different proposition. Not to get into an argument about where the lines are between the rights of the masses and the rights of the individual. . . . -
kgsam,
My favorit color is green. My cousin's is blue. Yours may be tan. Everyone has a favorite color.
How can any philosophy that states "each person's color preference is correct for him, even when everyone has a different favorite color" be objective? -
It's too bad she had so many wacked out ideas to go with her good ones, but what do you expect from a child of a totalitarian society?
I dunno, Cathy Young was raised in the Soviet Union, and she seems pretty immune to whackmobility. -
As was Isaac Asimov. So my proposition was wrong. What do you expect from some strange guy on the Internet?
-
Actually, Pro Libertate, Asimov was only born in the Soviet Union; I think he moved away before he was old enough to form any memories of it.
-
...one's own life is always more valuable than those of others...
Joe, Rand does not make this claim. It is an example often cited by Rand's detractors and it is false.
In fact, in her other writings she notes scenarios in which it would be perfectly moral to sacrifice one's life for that of another. Of course, she does not use the word "sacrifice," as that word denotes the exchange of a value for that of a lesser value or nonvalue.
Hence it is not moral to exchange your life for that of a stranger -- someone you could not possibly value -- because you don't know that person. But it is morally imperative to do so if one values the life of another higher than one's own, and the prospect of continuing life without that individual is unbearable. Many real-life scenarios would fit this bill. -
Pro Libertate,
First, I'm not talking about the choice to support or not support Brand X (Objectivist Philosophy) being rational or irrational, based on subjective or objective criteria. I'm talking about the internal logic of the philosophy itself, which seems to arrive at its individualist orientation based on a proposition - each person values his own life more highly than others - that is by necessity subjective. If we accept that each person's emotional preference should be the guide for their actions, irrespective of outside forces, we're bowing down to subjectivity.
Second, objectivism goes well beyond the non-intervention argument, and actively promotes the notion that the pursuit of self interest is virtuous in its own right. It's not just wrong to interfere with someone's pursuit of their self interest because it's wrong to screw with people, but also because each person's self interest itself is an ideal that is good to advance. Whatever you think of that statement, it is irrefutably a nod to subjectivism, as "the good" is defined ultimately by each individual for himself, without regard to external evidence. -
I sense a PhD thesis--The Hermaneutics of Being Born and/or Raised in the Former Soviet Union with Subsequent Exposure to American Society.
-
I sense a PhD thesis--The Hermeneutics of Being Born and/or Raised in the Former Soviet Union with Subsequent Exposure to American Society.
Jennifer, they are all writers. Hmmm. -
OK, Ed, good point.
But I'm afraid that still doesn't get me out of my quandry. Once again, a philosophy that defines the value of people's lives in terms of how each individual feels about the values of those lives is making claims of objectivity.
Objectively, Albert Einstein's life has exactly the same value whether I know who his is, or not. To claim that my personal feelings about him are relevant to determining the value of his life is an elevation of the subjective. -
joe, I object to Objectivism. Even as a fairly strong individualist kinda guy. It's become a cult, anyhow.
-
Actually, as I think more about it, comparing Cathy Young to Rand is unfair to Rand. I don't know how old Cathy is, but she was certainly born long after the Russian Revolution, and when she grew up Communism was all she ever knew. That's quite different from Rand, who grew up in a private-property society, saw her father work very hard to build up a business, and then saw the Bolsheviks take her father's business away. I'm sure that was far more traumatic than whatever Cathy Young experienced.
(When I read Atlas Shrugged, and all those scenes where Wyatt torched his oil fields or Francisco trashed his copper mines and whatnot, I thought it was pretty obvious that this was Rand's way of taking revenge, on paper, against the Communists who took her father's stores. I have no doubt she imagined herself doing the same thing to her father's property before the Communists took it, and I didn't blame her one bit.) -
How can any philosophy that states "each person's color preference is correct for him, even when everyone has a different favorite color" be objective?
The objective point is that man is a subjective creature; by nature. Hence the suppostion that one color is the correct color for all is false, because it is subjectively based.
Whereas the supposition that different people have different tastes sems to be a reasonably objective observation based upon the ojective fact that different people express different tastes. -
The philosphy has its problems too. The ideals she proposed in "Atlas Shrugged" would work only if every single human being were ruled entirely by logic and reason, as opposed to prejudice, nepotism, spite, religious zealotry, Freudian rationalizations or any other such thing.
In its own way, it's like the flip side of Communism
Yup, both of them, and the more fundamentalist reaches of libertarianism, all expect people to act like machines.
As I say frequently: Humans are not boolean logic gates. They are undomesticated beasts with ornery dispositions and should be treated as such. -
It's hard not to sympathize with what Rand went through. And, of course, she gets here and hears people tell her about the Workers' Paradise™ that was the USSR. I'm sure that didn't raise her ire even further.
-
Clever use of the pronoun "They" there.
-
It's still a bad question because there's no way the fat guy weighs more than the 5 people, and physics cares about total mass.
Besides, doesn't it seem like the best strategy would be to warn the 5 people to get out of the way? 0 deaths, everybody wins. -
Also, with pushing the fat man over, you run the risk of the trolley plowing through him like so much butter and killing the other 5 regardless, making you a cold blooded opportunist fat-boy killer.
-
Maybe his screams would alert the five to the danger.
-
wouldn't the fat guy just grease the rails?
-
Obviously, tomWright is one of our incipient robot overlords. Whom we welcome with great enthusiasm.
-
Pro Libertate - I know I'm quibbling, but IsaacAsimov arrived in the states at age 3.
-
Supposing I found a 3 ton "person" who could reliably slow a trolley, how would I hoist this "person" onto the tracks. Why don't I just park the forklift on the tracks, rather than using it to move the 3 ton person? Rand's answer is good, but there is more to it. It's hard to evaluate the ethics of a situation when the physics of it is so hard to understand.
-
I suspect she was inspired by the stories of Cuban plantation owners burning their cane fields before the rebels could get them.
-
Shrugged, and Fountainhead to a MUCH lesser degree, are stories set out to illustrate a philosophy, not an actual treatise on philosophy. They are not designed to depict a realistic or naturalistic environment. They are fables about conflicting ideals, cut from the same romantic-school cloth as countless novels before hand.
Secondly, and usually ignored by most people, is that not every character espoused her views. Rand did not condemn all non-modern architecture, but she wrote a character who did.
Lastly, Shrugged pre-dates the actual books that comprise Objectivism by a decade.
I'm not being an apologist here. I am a small "o" objectivist who embraces the epistomology and metaphysics (and, thus, the ethics) at the core the philosophy. Her over-justified aestetics, social blinders, circle of bootlickers, desire to forcably take it up the ass, inability to write well-paced dialog, etc. are irrelevant. -
Secondly, and usually ignored by most people, is that not every character espoused her views. Rand did not condemn all non-modern architecture, but she wrote a character who did.
But is it unrealistic to assume that her heroes agreed with her, whereas the villains did not? -
Jeff P., I agree that the message is more important than the messenger, but she showed a frequent emotional bias in her reasoning (whether it was in her novels or in her nonfiction). That's what puts me off, especially when she simultaneously asserted her infinite rationality and logic.
This reminds me of Hakluyt's argument about Heidegger (discussing Heidegger's philosophy in light of his Nazism). -
You have to remember Rand's premise; man's life is the standard of value.
-
kgsam,
If man's life is the standard of value, I still don't have any measure by which to prioritize another man's life above or below my own. We're both men. -
Robot? Who told?
-
Robber: Your money or your life.
Joe: I don't have any measure by which to prioritize this. -
What if the "fat guy" was really Mother Theresa wearing a fat suit? And what if they "five bystanders" were Hitler, Stalin, and three famous serial killers? Huh? Huh?
-
Ed,
Money and life are two unlike things.
A life and life are two like things.
Would you care to try again? -
Haven't read the whole thread, but I think even the first, "easy" version of the trolley scenario is not so easy. You're still taking positive action that knowingly and deliberately causes harm to an innocent human being. The fact that you're saving more lives may not be acceptable.
This takes you into, "Would you torture a single child to death if doing so would usher in a perfect age free of pain and suffering and death?" territory.
My first thought is that the only moral response to either trolley scenario is to yell, "GET AWAY FROM THE FUCKING TRACK!" -
They're all deaf, Stevo.
-
OK, Joe, I'll make it a little easier for you.
Executioner: Hitler or Eisenhower?
Joe: I don't have any measure by which to prioritize this. They're both men. -
btw, the test is available here; I'd be interested to see how some of the other Reason peeps score (I'm assuming this hasn't come up in any other threads).
JF, I've taken these before, and I'm not sure what to make of them. FWIW, mine said that I have a moderate preference for white faces. If that's true, does it make me a racist? (Gee, my last and current bosses have been black so I doubt it.) Seems to me that there may be some training effects that would be difficult to control for.
In any case, I will say that there was an fMRI study that CLAIMED to show "latent racial bias" based on the fact that white subjects seemed to have extra frontal lobe activation (cognitive/decision making) when shown black faces. The researchers concluded from this that white subjects were working to SUPPRESS their racist reactions.
Again, this is an example of a conclusion that may or may not follow from the study results. In fMRI there are nearly infinite compounding factors, ranging from small sample sizes (it costs around $2000 to scan each subject) to the fact that we still aren't sure what activitions in given areas really MEAN. -
They're all deaf, Stevo.
Well, how the heck do I know this? If I yell and they don't move, I guess. But by then it's too late and they get his, taking the moral dilemma out of my hands.
By the way, the last time I took the black/white racism/preference test, I consciously adopted the most P.C. frame of mind I could, and concentrated real hard, and the test told me I have no significant preference for one race over the other.
Unfortunately, I know myself better than that. I like to think I'm free of arbitrary racial prejudgements, and I try, but every once in a while I find myself bumping up against assumptions I didn't know I had. -
See, Ed, now you've given me objective criteria to judge by. It would seem to me that a philosophy that prioritized the value of individuals' lives by such criteria as their accomplishments, the pain they've caused, and the good or evil they're likely to do in the future would have a good claim to be "objective-ism."
Or at least, a better claim to the term than a philosophy that says, "If you're Hitler, Hitler's life is worth more. If you're Eisenhower, Eisenhower's life is worth more."
Since you clearly missed the point of my last response, just let me know if you need me to make that easier for you. -
Well, how the heck do I know this? If I yell and they don't move, I guess. But by then it's too late and they get HIT, taking the moral dilemma out of my hands.
-
Joe, way back near the beginning of this thread, Ed criticized me because I took him at his word when he said something about Ayn Rand. Draw from that whatever conclusion you will.
-
Second, objectivism goes well beyond the non-intervention argument, and actively promotes the notion that the pursuit of self interest is virtuous in its own right. It's not just wrong to interfere with someone's pursuit of their self interest because it's wrong to screw with people, but also because each person's self interest itself is an ideal that is good to advance. Whatever you think of that statement, it is irrefutably a nod to subjectivism, as "the good" is defined ultimately by each individual for himself, without regard to external evidence.
Objectivism isn't about a particular individual's values (which are subjective), it's about the right of an individual to pursue those values (and the equality of individuals in that regard).
If man's life is the standard of value, I still don't have any measure by which to prioritize another man's life above or below my own. We're both men.
You don't have an objective value. But that you choose according to your own values and that you are both men, is an objective fact.
Look, Rand was mistaken in assuming that she was peerlessly objective aout everything, but she was correct that humans live for their own purpose and by their own values. Even if you subscribe to values promoted by others, you are the judge of what you subscribe to. You may do so for subjective reasons, but THAT you do so is an objective observation. -
A trolley bears down
Five deaf people do not see
Adios, fat guy -
Ayn Rand and myself
In a lifeboat. Room for one?
Wet Objectivist. -
Joe:
I understand your confusion with the use of the word "objective" with reference to Rand's philosophy. It may be useful to note that she was not only contrasting "objectivism" with subjectivism. She was contrasting "objectivism" with subjectivism and intrinsicism. She argued that values are not subjective becasue they are not something humans just make up arbitrarily. She argued that values are not intrinsic in that what is specifically valued is something that should be valued by all humans, at all times. She considers context, which makes her use of "objective" confusing. Attempting to transcend both subjectivism and intrinsicism is not something particular to Rand: I think the early Heidegger was attempting to do that as well. -
If Ayn Rand had worked herself into a permanent snit over haikus rather than Victorian architecture, I'd like her a lot more.
-
To Hitler, Hitler's life is a reater value.
But Hitler sought to utilize and dispose of other people's live. He was a colectivist in a position of unrestrained political power. -
sp...greater...collectivist
-
Rand supposed that it is rational for man to pursue values that sustain his life and irrational to pursue values destructive to his life.
-
Haiku, you looter
Why seventeen syllables
When just two will do? -
A is A. Also,
poetry is poetry
but haiku is not. -
Writ in broken verse
Ayn rolls in the hay of pain
Weird Objectivism -
Ayn rolls in the hay of pain
Payback for the pain
I felt reading Atlas Shrugged
Serves her right, I'd say. -
There once was girl from Petrograd,
Who got off on thoughts of Western lad.
She wrote some books,
Made some lewd looks,
And now writes long speeches, egad -
haiku
gesundheit! -
You hate my haikus?
I will go on a strike then
Ha! That will teach you
And I will stop the
Haiku engine of the world
As others join me
Goodbye! And I leave
My last line as I found it:
___________________________ -
Best is Stevo
Every post on all threads
Prove his genius -
In other words, the first case (impersonal) runs straight through our prefrontal cortices that coldly balance costs and benefits, while the second case (personal) also engages those parts of our brains that cause us to feel empathy and which cause us to hesitate to shove someone off a bridge.
I've said it before, and I'll say it again. Libertarians tend to tailor their arguments to the "impersonal" costs and benefits side and tend to ignore the "personal" appeal. Our adversaries, on both the right and the left, tailor their appeal to the "personal" primarily, I think, and I think we've ceded this part of the battlefield to our detriment. -
...and I don't know if this has already been addressed further up the thread, but this, surely, explains the dearth of female libertarians.
...or maybe they just don't hang around online and debate stuff, so much. -
Snow falls in winter,
as cold as the hearts of men.
rob is a weenie. -
the dearth of female libertarians
Two words for our Ken
"Sausage Fest" describes LP
And this blog as well -
Joe: don't know if you're still here, but the idea is that "value" implies "value to someone"; nothing has any inherent or intrinsic value (see Kevin's post). Thus, to Hitler, Hitler's life would have more value.
I believe something slightly different. I don't think it's possible to construct an argument to show that I shouldn't value my happiness above all else, but I also don't think it's possible to construct an argument to show that I should. I just think that people who really, genuinely don't (I know a couple, but only a couple) are really fucking weird, and more than a bit fucked up. But that doesn't mean they're "wrong" in any externally demonstrable sense.
I guess you could say I'm an objectivist without the objective part? -
How did a philosophy that relies so much on each individual's subjective preferences to guide moral reasoning come to known as "objectivism?"
We just had a vote... 71% were in favor of re-enslaving blacks.
If you don't support this, how can you call yourself a "Democrat"?
Then again, I probably wouldn't stoop so low as to actually call you a "Democrat"- IMO, "congenital asshole" is much more appropriate... -
Wow, that was really lame, fletch.
-
So let me see if I've got this straight:
Rand's philosophy is "objectivism" because
1) Her philosophy was objectively better and true than competing philosophies, and she could prove it to be so, objectively and rationally. Allegedly.
2) The pursuit of self interest is universal among human beings, as opposed to the values that underly all other philosophies, which are particular to individuals, cultures, times, places, etc. Allegedly.
Well, it seems to me that every political philosophy claims to be objecitvely the best one, and claims that their objective superiority can be proven; and that every political philosophy claims that its values are the true universals, and that its competitors' values are "false consciousness" brought about by temporary economic and social forces that are particular to certain times and places.
The use of the term "objective" by Rand's followers seems to be little different from calling one's political philosophy "bestism" or "truthism."
Or naming one's magazine "Reason," for that matter. ;-P -
Joe,
Rand presumed that there is an objective reality and that man should determine what that reality is and order his actions in conformance with objective reality.
Some of us have noted some of the components of objective reality; man's desire to survive, for instance.
Whatever you think objectivism means, Joe, you seem to insist upon a perverse rendering of its meaning. If you believe there is no objective reality, then tell us, what is there? -
I don't know how you got the impression that I don't believe there is an objective reality, dude. I certainly do.
I proclaim myself to be part of "the reality based community," remember?
"Objectivism" is hardly the only philosophy that exhorts its adherents to pursue objective reality. Nor is the pursuit of objecive reality the defining core of objectivism.
The core of so-called objectivism seems to be to define the good in terms of each individual's subjective pursuit of self-interest. That, it would seem, is a perverse meaning for the term "objectivism." -
Stolen concept fallacy - (Smuggled concept)
Using a concept to support an argument while denying a concept which the supporting concept logically depends on.
(Note: This fallacy is called a "stolen" or "smuggled" concept, because an asserted concept includes in its meaning an unnamed concept (so is smuggled in), which is directly, or by implication, denied by the argument. The fallacy is put over by ignoring or evading recognition of the smuggled concept.)
Examples:
"It is impossible to know with certainty, any philosophical proposition." But this is a philosophical proposition which is presumed to be known with certainty, so the possibility of knowing with certainly is "smuggled in."
"Moral values can never be discovered by reason. Moral values are not objective, they are entirely relative, and every individual must discover for themselves what their moral values are." But, if moral values are not objective and cannot be discovered by reason, what method does each individual use to discover their moral values, and how will they know them when they have been discovered? Even in the grossest versions of subjectivism, such as this example, the fact that reason is the only faculty humans have for discovering and identifying truth cannot be evaded. -
I've always thought "Objectivism" was a kind of strange name for Ayn Rand's philosophy; I've always though "Contextualism" would have been a better description. Its not an intrinsic or absolute right and wrong, nor is it entirely relativistic or subjective... however, within a given context there is a determinable right/wrong.
To put it another way... there are "principles" that are "objective" and "rules" that are "only valid within a certain context". The kinds of "rules" you would get by examing lifeboat situations don't translate well to less extreme cases.
Anyway, I'm not an expert on Ayn Rand or her philosophy, but that's the way I read her stuff.
----------------
P.S. From what limited amount I know of her personal life she sounds like (a) an intellectual bully, (b) very egotistical, and (c) really creepy.
P.P.S. I have a theory that everyone who reads Atlas Shrugged turns into an asshole for a period of no less than 30 days after finishing it. -
The core of so-called objectivism seems to be to define the good in terms of each individual's subjective pursuit of self-interest. That, it would seem, is a perverse meaning for the term "objectivism."
That is not the meaning of objectivism.
The meaning is to be applied generally in that ALL individuals are self directed and pursue their self interest AND that it is rational for them to do so. Rand makes her statements about man qua man, not about any PARTICULAR individual.
Of course individuals view the world from their own perspective (subjectively). If this is true, then it is an OBJECTIVE assessment of man's nature.
The thrust of Rand's position is that there is no basis for supposing that there is such a thing as a collective will as there is no such thing as a collective being with a collective mind to have such a mental state and further, that such a thing is a pretense for some to assert their will upon others. Anti-collectivism. Only individuals ACTUALLY exist, all else is construct. -
P.S. From what limited amount I know of her personal life she sounds like (a) an intellectual bully, (b) very egotistical, and (c) really creepy.
You should read 'We The Living' to get an idea was what she was reacting to. And to move to the U.S. and find the same collectivist ideas popular here as well.
P.P.S. I have a theory that everyone who reads Atlas Shrugged turns into an asshole for a period of no less than 30 days after finishing it.
There is no shortage of assholes in the world, I doubt that someone turns into an asshole from reading a book, but their interpretation of it may cohere their assholiness into a more palpable manifestation. Like the leftists of the world are angelic or something; those envy mongering, human hating, covertly fascistic death dealers.
If you've ever watched Rand's interviews with Phil Donahue, you may find your impression of her is not as bad as what you have heard. -
I have a theory that everyone who reads Atlas Shrugged turns into an asshole...
Hardly an original theory. I've seen it posted here on numerous occasions. My own theory is that many of Rand's detractors have a deep-rooted inferiority complex, and by calling their opponents "assholes" they feel a little better about themselves for a while. -
"Still lurking" flatters --
Thanks. I'm much more cool online...
(Onion said it first)