The Philosophical Hierarchy and why it matters

[Thill029]

I was discussing politics with my friend's girlfriend and I told her that politics is all about philosophy, so much so that it is defined as the branch of philosophy dealing with human interaction. She got really irritated, claiming that I'm wrong and just clinging to definitions (whatever that means). Meanwhile she has very strong political opinions, and she doesn't even know what politics is.

[MrGentlemanly]

LMAO @ 4:20!

That's exactly how my anarchist classmates act!

[efghijkl8]

I asked for evidence you said you don't have any. So your truths about the human brain derive from Rand's axioms and your own introspection about scenarios which you have no experience of. Any reason why someone can't introspect anything else, e.g god? not by your reasons.

[efghijkl8]

I was being patient/interested in you but instead of discussion you swear at me/everyone, provide no evidence, refuse to answer direct questions and dismiss others as idiots without knowledge or respect. Don't you get respect if you show it to others?

[dannidandannikins]

@efghijkl8 Here's why I have been getting so angry at the way you have debated: I don't think you have made any effort to understand the material. For instance, you complained that Objectivism doesn't say why suicide is always wrong - indicating that you don't realise that Objectivism doesn't say that suicide is always wrong and are instead projecting onto it your own assumptions.

[efghijkl8]

@dannidandannikins I remember you telling me that suicide was immoral and me challenging you on it whilst you were enjoying my hospitality. Don't you? My understanding is that agent relative morality based only on individual survival as a standard of value does not substantiate the extended moral and psychological claims you proclaim.

[dannidandannikins]

@efghijkl8 yeah, i said it is immoral as a general rule, not in all instances. Similarly killing another person is immoral as a general rule, but in some circumstances it is moral.

You seem to have this weird idea that Objectivism hands down intrinsicist moral commandments... 'do/don't do x'

[dannidandannikins]

@efghijkl8 Instead, you've made a lot of effort to find the internet's most dishonest critics of Objectivism: Nyquist, who denies the validity of reason; Heumer, who straw man's Rand's ethics and falsely accuses her of hero-worshipping a child-killer; Prescott who rejected Objectivism in favor of his beliefs in psychic powers! All of whom accuse Objectivism of being a cult, which means that you, by demanding that I read and respond to them, are accusing me of being a member of a cult.

[efghijkl8]

no not really.I suggest reading Prescott because he writes about being an angry close minded objectivist, Nyquist beause he references ideas that you have no knowledge of because of your refusal to read about a subject before forming opinions, and Huemer because he raises several very strong criticisms that you have not made the effort to understand.

[efghijkl8]

@dannidandannikins As for making effort to understand others', I gave you a great book on art to read, you immediately said it was crap (wrong), I mentioned the sense in which knowledge may evolve and within 2 seconds you disdainfully reject it as for idiots and irrationalists.

[dannidandannikins]

@efghijkl8 It was subjectivist tripe. Strictly speaking, it was even wrong, it was meaningless.

[dannidandannikins]

@efghijkl8 Not to mention that you call Rand - and therefore me by extension, as an advocate of her philosophy - a crackpot, a bitch and an idiot. Plus you accuse me of being arrogant, ignorant, soap-boxing...

And you wonder why i get annoyed?

[efghijkl8]

Your claim about hierachy is a sham. You justify ideas by saying there is no alternative, then swearing/shouting people down without discussion or dialogue, perhaps throwing in an 'A is A' for good measure. That's all you do.

[dannidandannikins]

@efghijkl8 You're the one here who is shouting and mouthing off, I've explained why I think that emotions are a response to facts of reality guided by one's values, I've invited you to say which part of my explanation you reject and, rather than choosing one, you just shout at me that the 'hierarchy is a sham'.

I shout you down, you say... Did I post over a hundred comments on your youtube channel? Did I send emails to our brother and your friend trying to drag them into it?

[efghijkl8]

@dannidandannikins a discussion of theories of emotion is something different. I asked for evidence for our theories. You provide none. Hence the 'hierachy' is not supported by anything other than 'A is A'. You can try to duck the issue by moving it onto something else, but that is not unnoticed.

[dannidandannikins]

@efghijkl8 Hang on, you asked me a bunch of questions about emotions, which I answered, you said that I was wrong so I asked you to elaborate on what part of my answer you deem incorrect... and that means that I am trying to duck the issue by moving it onto something else?

Wakattenai.

[dannidandannikins]

Have I sent you websites hosted by people who are explicitly offensive about your philosophy and try to straw man it a la Heumer and Nyquist? Have I then demanded instant replies to whatever criticisms they make? Have I accused you being like a muslim who refuses to debate outside his faith?

You say I refuse discussion or dialogue... Have I deleted your comments that I found offensive / rude / was not able to answer?

No, I haven't done any of those things, you have.

[efghijkl8]

Yes you refuse to answer direct questions and swear at the people who ask them. If I (finally after years) take exception to this and set you questions you cant answer, don't throw a strop. If you have no expertise, research, empirical support perhaps you should do some work and get off your soap box.

[efghijkl8]

As for the axioms, objectivism claims to be based on reality, yet you use the axioms to justify whatever crackpot theory occurred to Rand and claim no evidence is needed. Their only value to you is in rhetoric

[dannidandannikins]

@efghijkl8 The axioms provide the conceptual base for the evidence that is direct perception. Emotions by their nature - a state of a particular conscious entity - can only be perceived by introspection.

Talking of things only used for rhetoric, how about you saying that 'one can never be certain of anything because human consciousness is fallible', which you conveniently forget every time you claim certainty that I am wrong.

[efghijkl8]

@dannidandannikins We have never had a discussion of my thoughts, you are too arrogant. As for the certainty of you being wrong, I have never disagreed with you, just requested answers/evidence which you avoid.

[efghijkl8]

So psychologists with field research and peer reviewed literature are all idiots. Reading Rand and nothing else makes you an expert. If alternatives to Rand are mystifying to you, why assume everyone is an idiot. Do some research before mouthing off.

[dannidandannikins]

@efghijkl8 Did I claim to be an expert on psychology or have I merely claimed to have knowledge of one basic principle - that emotions are a response to facts of reality dictated by values... a claim to which your response is not 'that's wrong because of fact x, or contradiction y', you instead say it's wrong because unnamed experts have unstated opinions to the contrary.

[efghijkl8]

My contention is that you haven't provided any evidence for your theories. Nor do you know anything of the alternatives nor why experts hold those theories and dismiss objectivism as simplistic and counterfactual. Since this thread is about hierachy those are fair points, not snide. Where is your evidence?

[dannidandannikins]

@efghijkl8 Like i said before, the evidence is direct perception. TBH, the question you are asking about emotions strikes me as being about equivalent to asking how Objectivists can be so sure that 'a hand is the thing on the end of one's arm'.

As for how many psychology books have I read, not many, sure. I read some fraud a few years ago and I read 'The Psychology of Self-Esteem' over the summer. I know enough to tell you that many schools of modern psychology accept determinism and are

[dannidandannikins]

therefore worthless.

I still want to know what part of what i said before you reject. Which of those three statements is wrong, in your ever so humble opinion?

and yes "(A is A doesn't count!)" is a twatty, snide little comment.

[efghijkl8]

I take it 'brazen act of assertion' doesn't apply to your 'proofs' of human psychology that are based on no evidence whatsoever (A is A doesn't count!).

[dannidandannikins]

@efghijkl8 I'll make a deal with you: I'll stop swearing at you when you stop making twatty, snide little comments. I have, on this comment thread, given an argument for the Objectivist theory of emotions, what part of it do you reject?

i) that emotions have causes (ie are not just completely random)?

ii) that the cause is a fact of reality?

iii) that the facts of reality that are causally relevant to your emotions are the ones that impact on your values?

[efghijkl8]

@dannidandannikins I am requesting your evidence. You come out with theories on everything under the sun but never any evidence. You believe in corroboration, so corroborate, don't just invent what sounds plausible to you in isolation from the consideration of the alternatives. What books have you read on emotions/psychology? None?

[efghijkl8]

You don't understand the problem of induction nor the tautology of banging the table shouting 'A is A', you refuse to answer simple direct questions or provide evidence for your claims. Yet you put ourself forward as a generous sage fighting the forces of willful idiocy! Mad.

[dannidandannikins]

@efghijkl8 actually sam, I contend that it is you who doesn't understand 'the problem of induction'. If you did then you would know better than to take it seriously.

[efghijkl8]

Another example of you not making the psychological/philosophy distinction is in you lack of counter-argument to the reason why arithmetic is a prior justified. You might have a counter argument, but you are deaf eared and so do not even know the argument for a priori! Expert indeed!

[dannidandannikins]

@efghijkl8 Claiming a priori knowledge can only ever be a brazen act of assertion or based on the analytic/synthetic dichotomy (eg Russell). I recommend Peikoff's essay 'the analytic synthetic dichotomy' for the latter and won't respond at all to the former.

[CamillaCalamity]

Aesthetics isn't about artwork. It's about what is pleasing and what isn't.

Also Libertarians maintain that the governement shouldn't enforce ethics on people beyond keeping them from harming each other and taking each other's property. Beyond that, ethics are up to the individual.

[universalJok3r]

A strong argument I must admit, but where would abstract concepts come into play here, such as happiness, love, etc.. (these just being examples) considering they don't have a physical existence, yet one can know of them and integrate them into ideas in ethics, politics and aesthetics. I'm just curious how you personally would qualify these because it seems as if the concepts are impossible to divorce from an individual's values which would sort of contradict the system.

[dannidandannikins]

@universalJok3r I'm not sure how to answer you because I don't see why you are raising this as problematic. All abstract concepts are going to depend on your metaphysics and epistemology. In the case of love, that is not so much a value as a response to values. To love something/one is to value it very highly and thus have a correspondingly intense emotional response to it. Happiness, I hold, is the state of mind experienced by a person who has achieved values without contradicting his other...

[dannidandannikins]

@dannidandannikins values (eg a man who is rich through production can be happy but a thief who acquired property through undermining the concept of property cannot be happy). The concepts of happiness and love and so on can be accounted for by philosophy but the full study of them probably requires a specialized study of psychology.

Hope that answers your question.

[universalJok3r]

@dannidandannikins but in saying that wouldn't that then mean that even metaphysics is subject to an individual's perception of reality and therefore not truly dealing in absolutes?

I know its probably off topic but I'm trying to get my head around the idea of Objectivism. As I've studied alot of quantum and theoretical physics in the past, the idea of an absolute reality divorced from the observer and frame of reference is kind of hard for me to swallow nowadays.

[efghijkl8]

@dannidandannikins dan this is a rationalistic argument that goes from your 'logic' to statements of facts about the world/human psychology. needles to say it is oblivious to evidence to the contrary. I replied to the schwartz perfect crime video you sent me, which falls down in exactly the same childish way.

[dannidandannikins]

@efghijkl8 Rationalism is your specialty Sam. You make a point of denying the validity of induction - which by definition means that you consider logic to be something divorced from actual reality as perceived. So don't go trying that 'you're a rationalist' shit because it makes you the worst kind of hypocrite - one who is utterly gormless to his own double standards.

[efghijkl8]

@dannidandannikins you can tear into a straw man ferociously! Last time you tried to summarise what I thought you got it completely wrong, spoke complete fantasy. You (and Schwartz perfect crime) base your arguments on the psychological assumptions necessary to make your argument appear coherent. This is why the true axioms of object.ethics are psychological and why you are a 'rationalist'.

[dannidandannikins]

@efghijkl8 rationalism is a system of thought that is cut off from reality - though it may be internally consistent. You have been rejecting the philosophical hierarchy consistently - e.g. arguing that aesthetics is divorced from ethics and epistemology. Therefore you have, clearly, been building a rationalistic system.

I described you as saying that knowledge is impossible and you came back with what I think is an obtuse claim that 'rational skepticism' doesn't deny knowledge, only certainty...

[dannidandannikins]

which is silly because to know something is to be certain of it. e.g. I know that I am a man... and there is absolutely zero doubt on the matter.

[dannidandannikins]

As for your oft-repeated claim that the true axioms of Objectivism are psychological, I won't even dignify that with a response.

[efghijkl8]

@dannidandannikins when rand says emotions are the result of value judgements how is that based on a hirachy. again with schwartz and the perfect crime argument, how is that based on hierachy? you duck these questions.

[dannidandannikins]

@efghijkl8 'rand says emotions are the result of value judgements how is that based on a hirachy?'

This question is obtuse. If you were to discover that your daughter had some terrible incurable desease you would feel sad, would you not? That's because your daughter is a value to you and the desease is a threat to that value.

If someone punched your wife, you'd get angry would you not? That's because your wife is a value to you and a punch to her is a threat to your values.

[dannidandannikins]

There's a word for people whose emotions are not linked to their value judgments, that word is 'neurotic'.

[efghijkl8]

@dannidandannikins so neurotics would include psychologists working in practice and research whose empirical research provides counter-examples to Rand's unsubstantiated 'theories' and who unhesitatingly reject Rand's opinions as ignorant and simplistic. Whereas young men with no experience/credentials in psychology or neuroscience are perfectly sane posting conjectural videos on utube without any evidence and ducking criticisms. REPEAT! Where is Rand's evidence (a la the 'hierachy!).

[dannidandannikins]

@efghijkl8 The evidence is direct perception. Do you experience completely uncaused emotions? if so then you are a neurotic, and I don't think many psychotherapists are going to deny that. If you don't accept that emotions have causes then there's no point in discussing any further.

If you do then have a little think: a child in africa is dying of starvation, what emotional response do you have to that? Probably sympathy but nothing that really affects you too deeply.

[efghijkl8]

@dannidandannikins I note the word 'probably' as a way of qualifying your opinion. You want to demonstrate the hierachy, fine, show me the empirical basis of rand's theories of emotions. Repeating a tautology (a is a) is irrelevant (and boring!).

[dannidandannikins]

@efghijkl8 no, i used the word 'probably' because I can't say with certainty what your emotional response to that is - since it would be contingent on your value system... which I hope is one consistent with the emotional response i projected you would have.

Now that I have cleared up your misreading would you like to try again at reading my argument and identifying where you think I have erred?

[dannidandannikins]

@efghijkl8 Now suppose Ni-chan is diagnosed with cancer, what emotional response would you have to that? Surely something far more intense than what you felt for the African child.

I'm gonna have to hear a pretty extraordinary argument to convince me that that is not because emotions are a response to facts of reality dictated by your values.

ps 'some psychotherapist says otherwise' is an appeal to authority and you should know perfectly well that not all psychotherapists agree anyway.

[efghijkl8]

@dannidandannikins what you mean is, people that do not follow Rand are irrational. What always follows is that when any specific question or issue is brought up, you refuse to discuss it with someone who cannot be rational. for example, you still haven't shown how 'the hierachy' applies to Rand's theory of emotions

[dannidandannikins]

@efghijkl8 No, I think that Objectivism is correct and I think that people who disagree with it are wrong, but i don't necessarily brand them as irrational. But when people explicitly divorce their philosophy from reality or explicitly divorce it from reason then I acknowledge the fact that they are irrational. e.g. when someone claims that one can never be certain of anything and proceeds to dismiss every syllogism on the grounds that he is certain that he can't be certain of something.

[efghijkl8]

@dannidandannikins the refusal to answer criticisms and specific questions is why you come across as unreasonable and insecure. your refusal to 'check/discuss your premises' because they 'can't possibly be wrong' is self-delusional and your close mindedness to alternatives is incurious, lazy and insulting, as reflected in your unattractive peevish remarks and countenance.

[dannidandannikins]

You've been very rude to me also so I'm not gonna suddenly start begging for forgiveness. Yes, I do stand by my stance that the fundamental axioms of Objectivism cannot possibly be wrong. But you're welcome to try and prove otherwise - maybe by thinking up a statement that pertains to reality that doesn't rely on the concepts of existence, identity and consciousness; or you could carry on saying that one can't ever be certain of anything (a proposition about which you seem quite close minded).

[dannidandannikins]

@MrChrisBlizzard Because I have a basic commitment to reality. That some primates can learn a handful of percept level abstractions does not qualify them as conceptual thinkers. You can see that a chimpanzee learns how to ford a river by using a stick to find the shallow route across, that doesn't mean it is able to conceive of abstractions such as 'momentum = mass * velocity'.

[dannidandannikins]

@MrChrisBlizzard Why are you even asking that question? You know full fucking well that 'numenous' is just a Kantian construction. That it refers to 'things as they really are' and other such bromides (as though the 'phenomenal world is 'things as they really aren't'). Philosophy is the practice of integrating knowledge into conceptual systems. The Kantian 'numenal' world is a practice of asserting arbitrary knowledge that is 'superior' to that derived from the senses.

[sjpor2]

Interesting; I have said for a long time that the very definition of Ethics prescribes the nature of Politics, ie for ANY system of ethics to exist, we must have Laissez-Faire Capitalism for our political system.

[dannidandannikins]

@sjpor2 "for ANY system of ethics to exist, we must have Laissez-Faire Capitalism"

I'm not sure I can agree with you there. To be able to practice one's morality one needs a degree of political freedom - ethics, being the realm of chosen values, is made impossible when one's capacity to choose is wiped out at the point of a gun.

However, ethics itself as a conceptual branch of philosophy exists irrespective of the political system, on account of the nature of existence and man's place therein.

[sjpor2]

@dannidandannikins

Obviously I'm only interested in ethics I can practise.

[dannidandannikins]

@sjpor2 :)

[dannidandannikins]

@MrChrisBlizzard or I'm getting bored of your stupid questions.

[dannidandannikins]

@MrChrisBlizzard Can't answer without giving away spoilers; and it's an irrelevant question anyway.

[dannidandannikins]

@MrChrisBlizzard You're being really obtuse Chris. There is no such entity as society but it is a valid abstraction. Same goes for "man", "road", "cloud" etc. the abstractions themselves don't exist independent of consciousness but the referents of the abstractions do. When I say "society doesn't exist" I mean that there is no such entity as society; but I don't question the fact that men interact with each other and form relationships which can be summarized under the blanket term "society".

[enotdetcelfer]

2:37 to 3:10 ROFL

...to be fair though, calling you a twat could simply be a taxonomic observation...

XP

Aside from a debate we could have on anarchy and how it's not as idiotic as it might first seem, I really really really like this video. Had me cracking up the whole time...

[WarVideo]

where is the lecture? cant find it, whats it called?

[dannidandannikins]

@WarVideo "Introduction to Objectivism" Can you not use the link in the video description?

[dannidandannikins]

@MrChrisBlizzard "what's wrong with being anti-system?" when you work out the answer to this question you'll understand why I can't be bothered to argue with you about the validity of the concept "man".

"Surely a system implies heteronomous force?" you're being a rationalist - taking a word out of the context in which it was used and launching to disconnected conclusions.

I'm not going to waste time discussing Westphalia.

No, Jefferson was not anti-intellect.

Yes, I do read non-Objectivists.

[franzpolak]

@MrChrisBlizzard if you define knowledge as empirical discovery, then there is no knowledge not of reality. i simply pointed out that one could think of mathematics (that deals with mathematical objects) or logic (that simply doesn't deal with objects in some cases) as knowledge independent of reality, but also as a framework for knowledge (a set of rules).

[franzpolak]

@dannidandannikins when it comes to mathematics, you're mixing psychology with mathematical foundations. a trivial example: "2+2=4" can be explained to a child using a bunch of apples, but that doesn't make the proposition true. "2+2=4" has a strict, definitional proof (see leibniz, or frege's proof) which is completely independent from objects in reality.

this concerns arithmetic. i don't want to discuss geometry since it is mostly a theoretical clusterfuck.

[dannidandannikins]

@franzpolak No, I was giving a brief account of the inductive process by which one acquires knowledge of numbers... what one then does with numbers in terms of definitional proofs and such like won't alter the fact that numbers themselves had to be induced from reality.

[franzpolak]

@dannidandannikins "formal logic is a pattern of making logical arguments: if A, B. and such like, where A and B are an algebra like method of abbreviating premises describing reality."

that's propositional calculus, not the entirety of formal logic, and you're talking about interpretation (which is a part of semantics), not syntax. in axiomatic systems, for instance, syntax is independent of semantics (which means proofs are independent of truth-functions). continued...

[dannidandannikins]

@franzpolak Ok, suppose the formal logic is completely divorced from reality... it is therefore meaningless and has nothing to do with knowledge.

[franzpolak]

@dannidandannikins well, syntax without semantics is by definition without meaning, but the studied language itself is usually considered an object which is defined by a set of rules known as meta-language (for instance, english is a meta-language for explaining what a conjunction is, syntactically). so, you have to know the rules, i suppose. but i can see why logic would not be a part of "knowledge", as i've pointed already. if knowledge is defined empirically, then, whatever.

[dannidandannikins]

@franzpolak hey, didn't see this bit when I replied: "you could also argue that logic is not a part of knowledge, but a sort of framework for knowledge, but that's strictly a matter of semantics, in my view."

I think we're probably saying basically the same thing here, logic is a means of integrating information into knowledge, not a piece of knowledge itself. any other thoughts?

[franzpolak]

@dannidandannikins i guess we agree then. i forgot to say the video is pretty good. most people do tend to forget that philosophy is not disjointed and it's parts are not completely independent.

[dannidandannikins]

@franzpolak thanks, I think it's a really massive problem. From theists who say there must be a god because otherwise there would be no such thing as ethics to libertarians I mentioned in the video to some commie fuck I knew in Kyoto who said that he rejects the hierarchy altogether, people who invert philosophical hierarchy seem to be everywhere. I'd hypothesize that it's down to the influence of subjectivism. Teach people that there is a primacy of consciousness; that reality is whatever...

[dannidandannikins]

they want it to be and they will inevitably say that values can be held without knowledge of reality and that aesthetics can be whatever and politics can be whatever... subjectivism means the rejection of objective standards - be it of reality, knowledge, ethics, politics or aesthetics - so why would a subjectivist give a shit about philosophical hierarchy?

[franzpolak]

@dannidandannikins there are also atheists who, for some reason, hold christian ethical beliefs without, obviously, accepting the underlying ontology. and they see no problem in this!

it could be subjectivism, but also it could be laziness and not having a problem with hypocrisy. if a person has no ethical beliefs, he can't defend his political ideas without an appeal to emotion or popular belief.

[dannidandannikins]

@franzpolak "there are also atheists who, for some reason, hold christian ethical beliefs" Fucking tell me about it!

[franzpolak]

@franzpolak i just want to re-iterate my point: this is not a criticism of philosophical hierarchy since logic and mathematics can be regarded as rules (or frameworks) for other philosophical disciplines within the hierarchy. you could also argue that logic is not a part of knowledge, but a sort of framework for knowledge, but that's strictly a matter of semantics, in my view.

[dannidandannikins]

@MrChrisBlizzard Even in framing your question you have used 'human beings' and made a judgement of how intelligent they are... indicating that you know full fucking well what a human being is. You can piss around as long as you like about the exact wording of a definition but you clearly know what a human is.

Objectivist stance: a being of volitional consciousness. If we ever need to distinguish humans from some alien encountered in the future, or some species that evolves from us, then

[dannidandannikins]

the definition of human will need to be refined in order to exclude that new species; that doesn't alter the validity, here, now and for the concept forming purposes necessary to your life, of the concept 'man'. Now stop asking dumb questions; or at least, if you must ask them, stop pretending that you accept the Objectivist epistemology.

[jerthemessiah]

Stopped watching that 74 minute video when they dude said "Art was crucial product of man". Fuck that.

[dannidandannikins]

@jerthemessiah I pity you.

[jerthemessiah]

@dannidandannikins Arrogance is like ice cream because it comes in at least 31 flavors and can get really really messy if you aren't careful.

[dannidandannikins]

@jerthemessiah true enough, what's your point?

[franzpolak]

not all knowledge pertains to reality. formal logic does not contain any objects. pure mathematics does not pertain to reality (well, at least not to empirical reality). general syntax is also considered non-empirical.

although this isn't really an objection to philosophical hierarchy, it doesn't seem true that all knowledge is a study of objects.

[dannidandannikins]

@franzpolak "not all knowledge pertains to reality." that's bollocks

formal logic is a pattern of making logical arguments: if A, B. and such like, where A and B are an algebra like method of abbreviating premises describing reality.

pure mathematics is an abstraction derived from "normal" mathematics, which Bertram Russell to the contrary, is derived from reality. You begin by observing numerous distinct entities, you start to integrate concepts from them by observing similarities. Having...

[dannidandannikins]

integrated a concept of "fingers" (or anything else) one can then start to identify numbers of objects, 'one finger, two fingers' etc... then one learns that the same thing can be done with people and dogs and cars and toys and everything else, one learns that 'one' can be 'one of anything' and that is when you become a mathematically aware human being. When one then learns of irrational numbers and imaginary numbers, these abstractions are higher level mathematics but are no more 'detached...

[dannidandannikins]

from reality' than 'furniture' is 'detached from reality' just because the referents of 'furniture' are lower level abstractions such as 'chairs' and 'tables'.

[Guncriminal]

Good explanation. I've been trying to explain this to people for a long time.

[dannidandannikins]

@Guncriminal Thanks, I too have often been stymied when trying to explain something and the person I'm talking to just goes 'why does politics have to be based on ethics?' or 'I don't accept this hierarchy'... normally I'm just too dumbfounded at the absolutely braindead nature of the question to be able to reply.

[MirageScience]

Wait?? Anarchists don't a a theory of ethics?

[dannidandannikins]

@MirageScience I didn't say that. I said that anarchists are a bunch of morons and observed that to be an anarchist you are making a value statement of a particular political system (though, strictly speaking, anarchism is an anti-system - fitting with the anti-intellect mentality of all anarchists).

[bma051000]

@MrChrisBlizzard "Telling me my question means nothing does not mean you can dodge it." Sure can. You cannot rationally answer an irrational question. Don't think so? Then answer me THIS question? "How pregnant is the Atlantic Ocean?"

[bma051000]

@MrChrisBlizzard You are playing semantics. And by stating that I misused "grant" implies that you knew how it is meant. You are born with life. This was not by your own concious act of volition, it was your parents. Now that you are alive and human, equipped with free will, you must now choose to live or die. You may choose to live, but the requirements for living are dictated by reality, and you must conciously choose a course of action to sustain it.

[dannidandannikins]

@MrChrisBlizzard My insult was not thinly veiled - my insults are never thinly veiled. I don't recognise any meaning in your question. To ask "how a man should live" is, to a man "how should I live", there is no difference unless you reject the concept "man", which is so ridiculous that I won't discuss it.

[dannidandannikins]

@MrChrisBlizzard Peikoff addressed that argument in a podcast a while ago. You are using the same fallacy as that of some ancient greek who said that one hair on your chin doesn't make a beard and nor does two or three. If you keep adding one hair at a time then at some point you get to a guy who clearly has a massive beard but since you can't specify the exact number of hairs that make a beard the word "beard" is arbitrary.

I doubt any concept that could survive accepting such a fallacy.

[dannidandannikins]

@MrChrisBlizzard I don't think your question has any meaning. Your comment beneath that you don't recognize the validity of the concept "man" expels you from the realm of philosophy. If you deny the validity of that concept how can you simultaneously claim to accept the Objectivist epistemology? The fact that this is the moral code of a rational man means that it is your moral code... unless you are irrational - in which case I can't deal with you rationally.

[Virtueman1]

Excellent

[dannidandannikins]

@Virtueman1 Thank you.

[1RationalMind]

"You're making value judgments, you can't fucking get away from that!"

Love it. Spot on! :) Nice review- thanks!

[dannidandannikins]

@1RationalMind Cheers

[bma051000]

@MrChrisBlizzard Life is granted to a man. His survival is not. Man is a volitional being, meaning he has free will. If he is to live, he therefore needs a code of values and virtues to preserve and guide his existence. Watch Part 4 of "This is John Galt Speaking," by GaltSpeaking.

[dannidandannikins]

@MrChrisBlizzard Once you identify values you must identify what actions achieve those values. If food is good then a course of action that creates food is also good. The food itself is a value, the creation of food is a virtue. If you have identified virtues then you should live in accordance with them, any other course of action will not achieve the values your life requires... which will result in your death.

[bma051000]

Well said, sir!

[dannidandannikins]

@bma051000 Thank you, but don't call me "sir"; I never commissioned!