You said

” It’s about not believing in the existence of God. ”

You are absolutely correct. What the theists miss out is that the statement “God exists” (and everything that follows it) is a hypothesis made by the theist. The onus of proving that claim lies with the theist, but theists love to place the burden on those who refuse to accept their hypothesis. No theist has ever presented concrete proof that God exists. To make matters worse, they alwys define their God in terms that are not amenable to rational analysis with reference to reality. So, atheists (a-theists) refuse to accept the hypothesis and live their respective lives on different premises.

Specifically on your example to refute the “is”-”ought” correlation, why do you choose a life-boat situation to explain normal, day-to-day choices? Do you spend every day of your life deciding whether you will consume poison or condemn your child to death? Ordinary people face much simpler choices on a daily basis. Your example is inappropriate to the “is-ought” problem. You need to choose a better one.

I don’t know if you realised it, but a common thread across all the examples you chose to show a person valuing something else over his own life is that there is only one result – his death. This concept – the death premise as Rand called it – is common to all philosophies that recommend that you be prepared to value a lot of other things above your own life. In effect, you accept death as an alternative before you are ready to value anything at all above your own life.

There are many ways to show the fallaciousness inherent in your argument. One is to just look around and see how many people choose death as the way to donate badly required organs for their family members who need them and do not see an alternative emerging. If this does not happen commonly, your claim that people value the life of others higher than their own shall stands clearly false.

Another way is to take the example of a person risking death (and maybe even dying) to save his son from the swirling waters of a river in spate. That man is not valuing his life below that of his son’s. He acts with the knowledge of his options
1. Not acting to save his son but then living with the full knowledge that he failed to even try to save his son – a life filled with guilt and pain
2. Acting to save his son and taking the risk of dying – high probability of death

In this case, the choice is not between life and death but between a life full of unbearable pain and death. The same goes for a person with a terminal illness.

A soldier who dies defending his country is probably of the opinion that life as a slave (which is what he will face if the invaders have their way) is better than the death he will face in battle. The choice here is not between life and death but between a life of slavery and death. In the case of soldiers fighting for a dictatorial regime, they have all accepted the death premise – that dying to further the glory of your country is more valuable than your life.

It is easy to drop the context and then pretend like you have proved a point, but put the context back and all your errors will become obvious.

In summary, to a person who has chosen to live, his life is the highest value of all. Conversely, not valuing ones life above all else means that one is choosing death and not life.

In my argument, I was talking of people who choose life over death. What kind of people are you referring to?

“Firstly, there is no such thing as intrinsic value. All value is as is judged by the being of volitional consciousness that is making the judgement of value.”

So far, so good.

“Secondly, there is no such thing as objective value either. All value is subjective. However, for a living being with a volitional consciousness whose only tool to understand the world around him is rationality (I guess that description fits man), all value originates from him – from his life.”

Firstly, I don’t think that the conclusion of the last sentence follows logically from the first part. It seems a non sequitur to me.

“For every man, his life is his highest value.”

Secondly, the above is not true. Many men value their wives, children, etc., higher than their own lives. According to a purely selfish philosophy, this shouldn’t be the case.

“Therefore, it is incorrect to say that values cannot be derived from facts. This is simply because the source of our values is our perception of reality, which in turn comes from the objective reality that exists. That reality is the same for all human beings. What differs is individual perceptions of reality.”

There’s more to it than this. Again, one man might value his own life. Another man might value the lives of his children or his wife or his country higher than that of his own life. One man might sacrifice his life to further an outcome, and another man would see that sacrifice and pointless and silly. There is much more to this than a difference in perceptions of reality (in the simple sensory sense of the word “perception”). There is also a difference in *valuations* of reality.

“The problem with your statement is that it permits sources of value other than reality.”

No, the source of the value is real; it is the mind of the valuer. Unless you think minds are not part of reality?

“To make it obvious as to why it is so, let me take an example where you are asked to make a choice of what to eat from stuff placed on 2 plates…”

My choice would depend on the circumstances of my life. Normally I would not choose the poison, of course. But let’s say I have been diagnosed with an inoperable cancer, and I have 6 months left to live, much of which will be pure agony. In that case, the poison would start to look good. Or say that the Joker has my children and says that if I eat the plate with poison, my children will be released. In that case, I might eat the poison as well. Another man might decide to tough out the cancer, or might decide that his ungrateful little rugrats aren’t worth dying for. This is subjective, and it’s not just based on differences in sensory perception.

“I never confused the two. I am only saying that every “is” implies an “ought” for a rational animal with a volitional consciousness. I am just saying that you are failing to recognise the connection and are trying to say that “ought” has no necessary connection to the “is”.”

Let’s say that the “is” is that I am faced with choosing poison or food. If I eat the food, my child dies. If I eat the poison, my child lives. Then the situation is “IF I want my child to live THEN I should eat the poison”. So given this situation, *if* I want the child to live, it is rational that I eat the poison, because that will achieve the outcome I desire. Otherwise, *if* I want to live and don’t care about my child, then it is rational that I eat the food, because that will achieve the outcome I desire. But there is no way that rationality and the raw facts of this situation can tell me whether I *ought* to want my child to live or not. I *cannot* derive that “ought” from the “is” using rationality.

“By that yardstick, all education, except that which involves communicating facts as they exist, is brain-washing. Just to take a simple example, to a religious person who firmly believes God created the universe as explained in Genesis, teaching evolution as explained by Darwin would be considered brain-washing.”

No, teaching ideas such as Darwin’s theory, and letting the pupil make up his own mind on the matter, is not the same as teaching them in such a way as to make certain the pupil does not go “renegade”.

” I don’t view values as something that can be rationally derived from facts ”

That’s your view and you are obviously free to have it. My view is a little different and that, to me, explains the difference in our positions.

Firstly, there is no such thing as intrinsic value. All value is as is judged by the being of volitional consciousness that is making the judgement of value.

Secondly, there is no such thing as objective value either. All value is subjective. However, for a living being with a volitional consciousness whose only tool to understand the world around him is rationality (I guess that description fits man), all value originates from him – from his life. For every man, his life is his highest value. Every other value is judged in relation to his life. That which enhances his life is adjudged to be a value and that which diminishes it is of disvalue.

Different men could come to different value assessments of the same object. Indeed they would because their apparatus – sensory and cognitive – are not identical. We each form our own picture of reality (concepts) and base our valuations on that. To the extent that our concepts come close to reality, we shall be successful in attaining our values.

Therefore, it is incorrect to say that values cannot be derived from facts. This is simply because the source of our values is our perception of reality, which in turn comes from the objective reality that exists. That reality is the same for all human beings. What differs is individual perceptions of reality. That is what accounts for the difference in value systems that will exist even among perfectly rational people.

The problem with your statement is that it permits sources of value other than reality. To me, one of the most important aspects of rationality is an unstinting effort to remain connected with reality. Accepting your statement would mean that you are opening the door to irrationality and arbitrary choice of values. To a rational person, that is tantamount to death. To make it obvious as to why it is so, let me take an example where you are asked to make a choice of what to eat from stuff placed on 2 plates. One contains food and the other poison. You are told which is food and which is poison. Would you consistently choose food or would you choose arbitrarily from one of the 2 plates? This is the difference between choosing a value system based on reality (a rational value system) and choosing one that is disconnected from reality (an irrational or arbitrary one). To make it clearer, let us assume that one contains that which you know as food and the other contains an substance unknown to you. Now how would you choose? If you choose arbitrarily, you run the risk of harming yourself. You may be ready to do that, but I would never be. I am very selfish.

” By trying to make facts into values, which they are not, you violate the axiom of identity (A=A). ”

I never confused the two. I am only saying that every “is” implies an “ought” for a rational animal with a volitional consciousness. I am just saying that you are failing to recognise the connection and are trying to say that “ought” has no necessary connection to the “is”.

” That sounds like brain-washing to me. ”

By that yardstick, all education, except that which involves communicating facts as they exist, is brain-washing. Just to take a simple example, to a religious person who firmly believes God created the universe as explained in Genesis, teaching evolution as explained by Darwin would be considered brain-washing. So, let’s not try to smear the words and obfuscate the real idea.

” Yes, this is always a danger, but I see nothing that can be done about it. ”

And that’s why I keep wishing you luck.

If I understand you, and I’m not sure I do, wouldn’t that imply that two systems could both be internally consistent, but advise differently in particular cases? In that case, both pieces of advice would be “right”, according to this philosophy, even though they might say different, maybe even mutually exclusive, things.

If that is correct, then I don’t think this is what either fundamentalist or I mean by “right”, although for very different reasons.

Actually, I have seen a (male) cat showing kindness to an unrelated kitten.

‘Before Jesus, Jews wrote “Don’t to to others what you don’t want done to yourself.” Jesus advanced it to “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.”‘

Neither of those is true. For a start, neither teaching in relation to others was framed in terms of conduct, “doing”, but in terms of attitude, having a frame of mind (from which conduct would flow, of course). And, of course, in both cases that teaching was secondary to a similar but stronger teaching in relation to God.

Russ wrote “In order to know that Obama is always right, you’d have to compare everything Obama says against an independent measure of rightness that is always right”.

That does not happen to be the case, if certain philosophies are correct. Those suppose that faulty value systems will always reveal themselves by an inconsistency somewhere, and that consistent systems are “right”. That is, the test of a particular belief is against the wider system, but the test of the whole system is a test of its universality against itself, not against anything else. To put it another way, a universal system ipso facto cannot have anything independent to test against, because any candidates are themselves within the system because it has been made universal; but, because it is universal, it can only be wrong if there are counter-examples where it does not hold up, which must be within it, which means they indicate inconsistency. So don’t look for particular tests, say of particular things, look for inconsistencies among the rules. There is a serious flaw with this approach, but not one that can be cured, rather one that shows that value systems cannot be fully tested at all (though some faulty systems may still be rejected).

“I fail to see why it is either rude or presumptuous.”

Then you need to work on your social skills.

“Your world is sure to fall apart just when you feel you are almost there. You will suddenly find that your fellow travellers have left to seek their own path.”

I understand what you mean. You’re saying that I will be under the assumption that these people agree with my values, when really this is just a happy coincidence. They really have other values, which under some circumstances will lead them to act as if they have my values. But under other circumstances, they will act differently, and show that they do not share my values. Yes, this is always a danger, but I see nothing that can be done about it.

“So, if one is in the “business” of education, one should try to show alternative ways of agreeing.”

My view is that if one is in the “business” of libertarianism, then one cannot dictate how other people must get to libertarianism.

“Once the person has agreed (for whatever reasons), a slow process of education can be adopted to ensure that he does not become a renegade.”

That sounds like brain-washing to me.

“What I see as a problem is a denial of the possibility that Rand was right on this issue (not necessarily from you, but I have encountered many who do so on these fora). I am of the view that no path to Liberty and Capitalism is secure unless people at large understand and internalise Rand’s rational moral philosophy and epistemology.”

Firstly, I don’t think Rand is right. I don’t view values as something that can be rationally derived from facts; they can only be rationalized (in the Freudian sense) after the fact. Basically, I see facts (statements regarding the way things *are*) and values (statements regarding the way things *ought to be*) as intrinsically separate categories, that do not share the same identity. By trying to make facts into values, which they are not, you violate the axiom of identity (A=A).

Secondly, I think that whether you and Rand are right or not, the “people at large” will never become Randians. Objectivism has had its day in the sun; that day is no more. I don’t see that as a reason to stop trying to work towards libertarianism.

“I mentioned the atheist philosophers because they had dedicated their lives to understanding the world from an atheist perspective.”

“PS, Do you guys really want to be like the mainstream economists who dismiss Austrian econ without ever having read any of it? That’s what you’re doing by dismissing the great atheist philosophers without reading them, just to keep your prejudices intact. ”

Even Foucault (not “Foucald”) thought that Derrida’s writing style was that of “obscurantisme terroriste”, and Foucault’s own style is also considered by many (even philosophers) to be a prime example of “profundity” through obscurity. Camus was an absurdist. One of the basic ideas of existentialism is absurdity. Basically, all of the writers you named are famous for writing works where it’s incredibly hard to nail down exactly what they mean, and if you do, chances are, what they mean is absurd.

So why should I waste my time studying the abstruse works of “the great atheist philosophers” to learn what atheism is all about, when I already know what atheism is all about? It’s about not believing in the existence of God. It’s very simple, really.

Here’s a conversation that illustrates my view on God and morality:

Mr. X: Wealth redistribution is right.

Mr. Y: Well, that’s just your opinion.

X: No, it’s an objectively true statement, because Obama says so.

Y: Oh, really? How do you know that Obama is right?

X: Obama is always right.

Y: And how do you know that?

X: I just do.

Y: That doesn’t make any sense. In order to know that Obama is always right, you’d have to compare everything Obama says against an independent measure of rightness that is always right. If you have that measure, then you don’t need Obama. If you don’t have that measure, then you can’t know that Obama is always right.

X: Ah, shut up!

Y: What’s more, if Obama goes away, then nothing changes. If you have a measure of right and wrong independent of Obama, then the fact that Obama is dead changes nothing. And if you don’t have an independent measure of right and wrong, then you’re no worse off than when Obama was alive.

X: Shut up shuttin’ up!

Y: And how do you know that the independent measure is always right?

X: *puts fingers in ears* La la la la la la la…

Now, substitute God for Obama, and you’re all set. *grin*

” It’s very rude and presumptious to assume that I don’t understand Rand. ”

I fail to see why it is either rude or presumptuous. I was making a logical inference based on a statement of yours. To even suggest that you do not act rationally in trying to establish your axioms is in complete contradiction with everything Rand said.

Just to give you a sample, she said things like

“Axiomatic concepts are the foundation of Objectivity”

“Axiomatic concepts are the guardians of man’s mind and the foundation of reason….if reason is to be destroyed, it is axiomatic concepts that have to be destroyed.”

“Axiomatic concepts are not a matter of arbitrary choice; one ascertains whether a given concept is axiomatic or not by observing the fact that an axiomatic concept has to be accepted and used even in the process of any attempt to deny it”

“Do you want to assess the rationality of a person, a theory or a philosophical system? Do not enquire about his or its stand on the validity of reason. Look for the stand on axiomatic concepts. It will tell the whole story.”

If you still have any doubts, I suggest that you read (or re-read) her “Introduction to Objectivist Epistemology”, especially the chapter on “Axiomatic Concepts”. That will tell you that I am being neither rude nor presumptuous.

” So I wouldn’t bother justifying that capitalism is not evil to him. ”

You really need a lot of luck. Your world is sure to fall apart just when you feel you are almost there. You will suddenly find that your fellow travellers have left to seek their own path.

The reason I say this is simple. You are choosing a path of moral contradiction. Such a path can lead only to one outcome – abandonment or violation of the offending code of morality in favour of the one more fervently believed in. That means that if in his heart of hearts, the person (your current ally) believes that selfishness is evil, he is very likely to (some day) dump notions such as Liberty and Property Rights and act to destroy Capitalism. He will then be your worst enemy because he will hate you for what you are.

This is what I am (and Rand had been) cautioning against.

The best I can say for your argument is that it takes time for someone to accept the completely rational way of coming to your conclusions. So, if one is in the “business” of education, one should try to show altervative ways of agreeing. Once the person has agreed (for whatever reasons), a slow process of education can be adopted to ensure that he does not become a renegade. Yes…. You are right to that extent.

What I see as a problem is a denial of the possibility that Rand was right on this issue (not necessarily from you, but I have encountered many who do so on these fora). I am of the view that no path to Liberty and Capitalism is secure unless people at large understand and internalise Rand’s rational moral philosophy and epistemology.

You have made too many factual errors, logical fallacies and spewed out right nonsense, that I do not feel compelled to take you seriously any more. You keep yourself misinformed and misinform others as well. That tells me that you are going probably through a crisis of faith. Of course I could be wrong. But you who keeps telling me that I am trying to keep my prejudices intact are obviously doing just that. Not the first time someone has accused me of what they indulge in themselves.

I know people who claim that a libertarian world view has affirmed their faith in god and there are those that are non-theistic or even atheistic because of their libertarian outlook and not to mention those that simply don’t care. But you my friend seem to be on some special evangelizing crusade.

Nietzsche, Sartre, Camus, Foucald and Derrida are all people whose work interest me greatly. I would have read them after I finished Human Action and Man, Economy and State and All the volumes of Conceived in Liberty plus several other important books by authors whose viewpoints you disagree with greatly, but played important role in advancing the Austrian understanding of economics. Now that would be better use of my time. And now after conversing with you, a person who during the course of the conversation has lost almost all credibility with me, I am more sure of my earlier decision. So thank you.

Oh and one more thing, there is no such thing as an ‘atheist perspective’. There are atheists with perspectives. Nietzsche, Sartre, Camus, Foucald and Derrida had their own and those that read them their own. You must be familiar with the term methodological individualism.

Simply not true. Atheists always try to make the atheist mass murderers religious. Hitler was an atheist.

Abhilash: “It is a very shameful thing to even consider the argument that Hitler, Stalin, Mao or Pol Pot they where acting more consistently with my morality than I am and makes you immoral in my eyes.”

That’s not what I wrote. Go back and re-read.

Abhilash: “You say atheists do not act morally.”

That’s not what I wrote. Go back and re-read.

Michael: “I don’t want to act like I know more than these atheist philosophers you mention, but maybe, just maybe, they were wrong to equate morality with God?”

Could be, but how will you know unless you read them?

Michael: “In any case, I see no reason to be bound by their arguments unless I agree with their arguments…”

Possibly, but you need to know their arguments before you can decide.

Michael: “…all that means is that all of the atheist philosophers you mentioned are/were very confused.”

How can you say that when you haven’t read any of their writings?

Abhilash: “The problem with fundamentalist (an appropriate namesake) is that he/she categorizes atheist philosophers long the lines prophets which in religion are indeed authority figures…”

Again, you put words in my mouth and twist what I have written to mean the opposite. Learning anything new requires a tiny bit of humility. I mentioned the atheist philosophers because they had dedicated their lives to understanding the world from an atheist perspective. They are considered great philosophers by other philosophers, not just me. For you and Michael to dismiss them without having read any of their writings is the heighth of arrogance. It only advertises your prejudices.

Awesome, now I feel like I’ve done my good deed for the day!

Here’s another one I think I like even better:

“After enlightenment, the laundry.”

‘I don’t want to act like I know more than these atheist philosophers you mention, but maybe, just maybe, they were wrong to equate morality with God? In any case, I see no reason to be bound by their arguments unless I agree with their arguments–there are different reasons one can have for being atheist.’

The problem with fundamentalist (an appropriate namesake) is that he/she categorizes atheist philosophers long the lines prophets which in religion are indeed authority figures not merely scholars with admirable scholarly contributions. He thinks we have to abide by what atheist philosophers proclaim, the same way he must adhere (or try) to abide by what Jesus proclaimed. That fallacy has its roots in mis-categorizing atheism as a religion.

Russ

‘Or as Zen Buddhists say, “Before enlightenment; chop wood, carry water. After enlightenment; chop wood, carry water.” *grin*’

Because of what you wrote, I will stay happy for the rest of today.

“Your sense of morality unfortunately is too tightly tied to your belief in god that you cannot recognize the two as separate. Which is probably why you are clinging to it so tightly. Do not worry. If tomorrow your faith slips, falls and breaks; you will not go on a killing rampage unless you want to, which I hope you won’t, if ever the day comes. The sun will rise, the birds will sing, life will go on, almost exactly where you had left it the day before.”

Or as Zen Buddhists say, “Before enlightenment; chop wood, carry water. After enlightenment; chop wood, carry water.” *grin*

When I lost my faith, 20 years ago or so, I wondered if I were going to become a Raskolnikov, or a Ted Bundy, or something. (The answer, of course, is no, I never did. Just in case you were wondering.)