Posted on 04/22/2003 5:25:25 PM PDT by RJCogburn
My philosophy, in essence, is the concept of man as a heroic being, with his own happiness as the moral purpose of his life, with productive achievement as his noblest activity, and reason as his only absolute. — Ayn Rand, Appendix to Atlas Shrugged
In her novels The Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged, and in nonfiction works such as Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal, Ayn Rand forged a systematic philosophy of reason and freedom.
Rand was a passionate individualist. She wrote in praise of "the men of unborrowed vision," who live by the judgment of their own minds, willing to stand alone against tradition and popular opinion.
Her philosophy of Objectivism rejects the ethics of self-sacrifice and renunciation. She urged men to hold themselves and their lives as their highest values, and to live by the code of the free individual: self-reliance, integrity, rationality, productive effort.
Objectivism celebrates the power of man's mind, defending reason and science against every form of irrationalism. It provides an intellectual foundation for objective standards of truth and value.
Upholding the use of reason to transform nature and create wealth, Objectivism honors the businessman and the banker, no less than the philosopher and artist, as creators and as benefactors of mankind.
Ayn Rand was a champion of individual rights, which protect the sovereignty of the individual as an end in himself; and of capitalism, which is the only social system that allows people to live together peaceably, by voluntary trade, as independent equals.
Millions of readers have been inspired by the vision of life in Ayn Rand's novels. Scholars are exploring the trails she blazed in philosophy and other fields. Her principled defense of capitalism has drawn new adherents to the cause of economic and political liberty.
So did Isaac Newton, Leibnitz, and Frankline, but all were more brilliant than you. Where does that leave you? You are showing your true colors now. Calling the men who created the greatest govt. in history "numbskulls" says alot about where you are coming from. I will just let stand out there on its own. It speaks volumes. Fellow FREEPERS, take note.
As I have gone over before--the moral community you choose to be loyal to. Some such choices are smart, some are not, reason must be employed to choose the best one, and this process can fail, which is why it requires continuous effort in reasoning, just as is the case for the common law.
Your standard is far from universal.
Rather my point, isn't it?
HOw do you decide which community is right?
By reasoning, and examining your feelings about what's fundamentally important to you and yours.
How do you settle disputes between communities? War?
If necessary. Do you think it was immoral to invade Afganistan?
Might makes right.
Might makes for survival of you and yours, and, coincidently, your moral precepts. God didn't cavil at it regarding the Mideanites or the Canaanites, what's your problem? Do you think natural human morality should exceed God's patience in this regard?
Still pointing out that reasoning is not a popularity contest, or an appeal to authority.
You are showing your true colors now. Calling the men who created the greatest govt. in history "numbskulls" says alot about where you are coming from. I will just let stand out there on its own. It speaks volumes. Fellow FREEPERS, take note.
Display a little playground rudeness and run off to snivel to mommie about my contempt for your irrelevant, pointless argument. Another brilliant offering.
What a laugh - there is absolutely ZERO evidence that traits, as in moral values, can be passed on to offspring -that would require genetic information, of which there is not even an inkling of evidence for. What a non-rational leap that is!
So? Still can't argue your way out of a paper bag, so you are reduced to irrelevant, inappropriate insults. Eugenics occurs all the time. Where is your venom toward mothers who refrain from producing offspring when both her parents turn out to have middle life genetic difficulties. Where is your venom toward woman who choose their mates based on their likelihood as long-term fathers?
This is nothing more than moral relativism on a community level. In your case, morals are relative to mankind on a community level (so much for Rand's individualistic philosophy). So if I am in a different community and I don't like your filthy morals, I can destroy you all and I would be right and moral becuase I am acting in conformity to the morals of my community. Simple logic. In this case, Nazi Germany was moral; Pol Pot was moral, Mao Tse Tung was moral; Stalin was moral (take that Ayn Rand!!!). Indeed, Al Qaeda is moral! ALL COMMUNITES ARE MORAL AND NONE ARE WRONG. In your system feeding the poor (a value of the Christian community) is on the same moral plane as torturing babies (a value of the Canaanite community). NICE SYSTEM!!
Usually, fathers who are loyal is an indication that they have good character and most people with good character believe in moral absolutes and that is a valid reason for liking such a man. I do not think many women (unless they are atheist darwinists like you) believe that loyalty will be passed genetically to her larvae), rather she believes he will be a loving and caring father who will instill proper values to her children.
Right...it's a matter of opinion - all communities are right unless they can be convinced by force that they are wrong. Might makes for survival of you and yours, and, coincidently, your moral precepts.
Might makes no distinction between goodness and power, and only means that you can FORCE your morals on someone else - but only outwardly since you cannot control one's thoughts. Please tell that to the homo-fascists and femi-fascists and islamo-fascists.
This is nothing more than morals = preference. Which is the same as moral relativism, which is right where we started. You are a moral relativist, which is the same as having no morals. Your world is a hodgepodge of moral systems and none can be wrong and all must be right. Well, let me make one last logical point. If it is true that each community is correct in choosing its own morals (as you have plainly stated), then the Christian community cannot be wrong!! We are also a community and under your system, we must be right. Therefore, you are CONTRADICTING YOUR OWN MORAL CODE WHEN YOU ARGUE AGAINST MORAL ABSOLUTISM. All you can say without sacrificing logic is that you do not prefer moral absolutism, but you cannot say it is incorrect without contradicting yourself; and since you have spent so muich time arguing against it, you have already committed the fait accompli. You have lost this debate.
Yes, but what practical purpose does another universal human practice serve -- respect and honor for the dead, including the elaborate funerary practices that we see in all different cultures? Including also the idea that the dead are destined for an afterlife of some kind?
If morality were an evolutionary principle arising from some kind of natural selection, then how does one explain the above -- which would appear to serve no obvious survival purpose for those who are still alive?
I don't think your naturalistic morality holds water, dohn. If you arge a naturalistic derivation or source, then I think it is you who is arguing "post hoc, ergo propter hoc," and are only able to do it by ignoring evidence such as the kind laid out in the immediately foregoing.
Obviously, I agree with you about the natural law and the moral law. The natural law is one of survival, magnified by gratification. In Romans 7, it is called the carnal mind.
Humans have the natural law, the carnal mind, but they also have the moral law, the spiritual mind. Even enlightened humans still cope with their carnal nature which urges them to do things the spiritual mind resists.
What else could be the source of the conflict one feels when wanting to take or do or say something he knows he shouldn’t? We see this conflict in every culture, over the ages, around the world.
If there were no spiritual man contending with the carnal man, why wouldn’t the only concern be survival and gratification, or perhaps whether they might be caught and punished? Why else would a man do the inconvenient but right thing when nobody is looking?
Certainly we see people whose mind appears to be carnal all the time, but more often we see people conflicted and resisting carnal urges.
But man can refuse to become what he truly is, in his essential nature, simply by denying God and his moral law. When this happens, then disorder and violence and suffering increases, in the human person and in the world.
One more thing on this: the implications of free will are wide-ranging, and not limited to those making the choices. For it truly to be free will, choices made through free will must have consequences -- even if they hurt the innocent.
This, IMHO, is the answer to "why do bad things happen to good people?" The question good people have to answer is: "how am I to respond when a bad thing happens to me?"
As we've seen on this thread, one possible response is to blame God, or to conclude that there is no God. Another response -- the right one, according to the Bible -- is to remain faithful to God. In some cases He will intercede for us in this life. And if not, we can still look forward to eternal life.
Somehow I missed this yesterday at this time. Please pardon the old world "theological lecture." The evidence of a moral impulse in animals (or ESP in dogs) is not evidence of natural cause. Of course that takes us back to creation vs. minds and hearts from nothing. Man is created in the image of God in order to relate to Him, maintaining many essential characteristics of God in much limited form. Man is to relate with animal life too, also for God's good pleasure. I think much of that has to do with training children to be parents, much of it also has to do with God loving a fruitful creation, and much has turned out to be about sustenance.
It naturally follows that animals have a reduced kind of soul and even spirit. Living, breathing animals have animal souls and spirits as surely as they live and breathe. (It may be drudgery to you to see this, but that is mentioned in the... Bible -- with a kind of "apology," it's just that a-lot of stuff is referred to in there, interstingly enough.)
Once again I'm pinging betty boop, this time because in time past she has pointed out the difference between man and animal as speaking of man's spiritual nature. Truly so, but it's also proper to say that the similarities are indicative too (and of course every bit of creation is indicative of the Creator to those willing to see without the veil). Also pinging Alamo-Girl due to her interest too in conscience and conscious, and in the aforementioned doggie book.
Does that sound a little animistic? Well we don't call them animals for nothing, I think. Also, bb & A-G, I tend to think it may just be that Satan had a hand in what became of creation too, do you too? But that's further off topic, especially for an "objectivist."
Just down the road home, I regretted I hadn't said, "I have a problem with hearts and minds from nothing...."
I'm really tired of Christians (actual Christians, in case donh is reading) allowing philosophical naturalists of one stripe or another to beg the question about human imagination and human feeeelings, including all the "inner senses" of humans, as John Locke and any number of "Scripturalists" have put it. Especially lost are the bare-faced, self-evident facts of what those feelings are significant of.
Instead, we let the conversation go down the nerdy trail of what "thinker type" people are most comfortable with ("thinker type" as opposed to "feeling type" folks who happen to be well-oriented to our dealings with feelings).
The facts that humans have imaginations and emotions and especially that we have the traits that emotions are emotive of, and the relational traits that our imaginations are most driven to imagine, provides us with very, very weighty material to "reason" about (and be glad for -- glad, schmad.... JOYOUS!!!).
donh said yesterday that the argument isn't about love. Well, it is.
Indeed, that is the nature of my argument. I do not claim that morals are abstractly absolutely good. That is your claim. I don't believe, for example, that you can demonstrate that it's good for the universe that it be infected by humans, however, I think the human moral community is a reasonably good choice of a moral community to work for and be commited to to secure things to me and posterity that seem valuable.
I merely claim that morals are likely to profit the moral community that adheres to them. The morals of a gang of thugs, not to rat each other out when captured are, for example, not disqualified. Not a very sensible long-term choice of a moral community, but there are no provable transcendental restrictions on what can be a moral community, only common sense restrictions.
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