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Friday
November 4, 2005

Understanding Is and Ought - A Personal View by Michael Stuart Kelly

Shorthand "mental tags" are extremely useful for moral principles. But the danger in their constant use is that they make the mind turn off on a cognitive level. They provide an immediate emotional reaction—usually moral denunciation, but sometimes, moral praise. The "What is it?" has become so integrated into the "What should I do?" that it is no longer asked or even thought about. (Read more...)
Discuss this Article (114 messages)

Saturday, November 5, 2005 - 3:49pm

The essays states, "Here is what I have observed with many Objectivists. When a phrase becomes automated on a normative level and constantly used that way—i.e., when words like 'turn the other cheek' are given the meaning of actively implementing altruism and constantly used in this manner—over time, I see people start to deny the cognitive truth of the phrase's meaning when Rand is mentioned." Just at this point a few actual quotes from these "many Objectivists" would be very helpful and probably serve to avoid any misunderstanding of the author's point. I mean not some imagined but concrete, actual examples, from a source the reader could, in principle, consult to see the full context, etc., etc.

Saturday, November 5, 2005 - 4:11pm

Michael M,

Nowhere did I ever say that it is a virtue to suspend the normative part of integration. The concrete bound mentality you mentioned does precisely that.

I stated very clearly that you must identify a fact before you can judge it. If you feel the contrary - that you can judge what you do not know, fine. If you feel that you can skip the cognitive - that you do not even need to know in order to judge, fine.

Your psycho-epistemology, not mine. And your choice, not mine.

Michael

Saturday, November 5, 2005 - 4:18pm

Wonderful suggestion, Tibor.

I will get on it. but the fact that people are denying the physical act of Rand's heroes already in my examples - trying to blur the physical act with the normative and state that the physical act is not really that, that a cognitive level is a concrete-bound mentality instead of the epistemological method of integrating the metaphysical - is already unfolding on this thread - total cognitive "blank-out." This is a good example already of what you requested, but I will find others.

Michael

Saturday, November 5, 2005 - 3:23pm

It's still redundant, Michael. All concepts are cognitive, some concepts are normative, all other concepts are non-normative. I certainly agree that the normative ones are properly based on the non-normative.

--Brant

Saturday, November 5, 2005 - 3:34pm

Not retaliating in kind is not necessarily turning the other cheek.

--Brant

Saturday, November 5, 2005 - 5:16pm

Michael,

No, the "concrete-bound mentality" can't see beyond the immediately perceptible, which is precisely what you are demanding. Look, you say, Rearden literally slapped Francisco and he did not respond. Then, you say, on the "Christian level", this "cognitive definition" (????) is "identical"--i.e. Francisco is "literally turning the other cheek". Good Lord.

You have stripped down the Rearden/Francisco scene to the purely perceptual. When somebody tries to point out to you ~why~ Rearden issued the slap and ~why~ Francisco didn't respond, you say "no, no, no....he literally slapped him and Francisco did not respond" and that they "chose those actions on the cognitive level". Or maybe I should quote one of your real gems directly:

Why they do this is another story. One thing is clear, however. They chose to act in that manner.

Again, you are demanding that the context of these situations be stripped away and that one should approach the situation from the purely perceptual level of a crow. "Hand....slap....face......no response...Wow, this looks just like the Christian ethic of 'turning the other cheek'....We've found 'common ground'!!!"

What's really happening is that others refuse to share your concrete-bound evaluations, and by some twisted gorilla logic you equate this with "evading".

MSK writes:

I stated very clearly that you must identify a fact before you can judge it. If you feel the contrary - that you can judge what you do not know, fine. If you feel that you can skip the cognitive - that you do not even need to know in order to judge, fine.

Wow, what a revelation!!! Please, Michael, if you want to put words into my mouth, at least provide a quote from my posts that remotely suggests this.

Michael

Saturday, November 5, 2005 - 5:23pm

Michael M,

You are the one putting words in my mouth and ignoring what I wrote. I will quote:

The act is identical (cognitive). The values are opposite (normative).

What part of that is so hard to understand? Should I have said "ethical values" for your comprehension?

Edit. Also, you wrote:

You have stripped down the Rearden/Francisco scene to the purely perceptual.

Wrong. Cognitive is the correct term, since concepts are involved, not perceptual. And I never said that this was all that is contained in that scene. I was very clear that there was a normative part. Ignoring what I said and making it something else is what you are trying to put into my mouth, except you are wrong.

Also - PS to Tibor. Brant just wrote, "Not retaliating in kind is not necessarily turning the other cheek." Since I was discussing this on the cognitive. not normative, level, here is my first example.

Michael

(Edited by Michael Stuart Kelly on 11/05, 5:28pm)

Saturday, November 5, 2005 - 6:37pm

Involving the scene between Francisco and Rearden, MSK writes: "Wrong. Cognitive is the correct term, since concepts are involved, not perceptual."

Really? You think so? You seemed to have skipped over a few sections in "The Psycho-Epistemology of Art" that you quoted in your article. Don't worry, I'll refresh your memory:

Art is the concretization of metaphysics. Art brings man brings man's concepts to the perceptual level of his consciousness and allows him to grasp them directly, as if they were percepts.

and further down the same page (20).

Just as language converts abstractions into the psycho-epistemological equivalent of concretes, into a manageable number of specific units--so art converts man's metaphysical abstractions into the equivalent of concretes, into specific entities open to man's direct perception. (Italics mine)

In other words, when AR uses the concepts 'hand', 'slap', etc. in order to create the scene between Rearden and Francisco, this act of artistic creation allows one to grasp it as if they were percepts or translates them into specific entities open to man's direct perception.

Similarly, when a person views another person slap somebody, it is ~perceptual~ until the time he translates the percepts into the mental units (i.e. concepts) 'hand', 'slap', etc.

Now, since I explained about 100 times how you are making a "concrete-bound" comparison (which hopefully you are a little closer to grasping now), I'll leave you to further untangle the rest of your epistemological mess.

I do have 2 requests, however: (1) please tell me how the quote I provided from AR in post #19 agrees with the Christian ethic of "turning the other cheek", and (2) find some quote from AR on ethics that does support this claim.

Michael

Saturday, November 5, 2005 - 7:08pm

Tibor,

I just started researching this, and then I came to the conclusion that I will end up picking a fight with too many people if I give examples from them. I look at their arguments and they usually do not admit a cognitive level - only the normative. I was gratified, however, to see more people understanding my message than I thought.

So I will give one example from Ayn Rand only. Remember, I am talking about using the same word to mean two different things. (Just like in my article, I was talking about using the same act for two different values.) The word in this case is "rights."

At the very beginning of Rand's article called "Man's Rights," she immediately qualified this word with another word, "individual." Within this context, she mentioned that former societies were amoral in terms of individual rights (which she sometimes called simply, "rights"), because they stood outside of individual morality. yet she did mention that they were founded on some kind of ethics.

Later, she used expressions like "The Divine Right of Kings," and FDR's "economic bill of rights," among other such, which she claimed were not rights according to the concept she had defined. Her concept was individual rights, and I don't believe that she was saying that the word "rights" did not exist at all as meaning something else - other types of powers and entitlements - under other standards. In fact, she herself had just used the word "rights" to mean them.

As she progresses, she starts saying things like, "Any alleged 'right' of one man, which necessitates the violation of the rights of another, is not and cannot be a right."

We obviously know that this last word is the qualified "individual right under a rational ethics." This is the normative concept.

However, she uses the cognitive concept as it suits her - so the phrase of "an 'alleged' right cannot be a right" starts being used - as above. In the first case ("alleged 'right'"), she is talking about the social contract (cognitive), and in the second, she is talking about the concept of individual rights (normative).

This has led far too many people to start saying that xxxxxxx (like social security) is not a right, when a person gets a paper from the USA government stating that it is a right. When he discusses this with an Objectivist or Libertarian, he is told that the word on his government paper is not really the proper word at all, but an error by the government.

There is a tug of war with the same word, when the real battle should be with the different concepts. I am sure that you know many people to whom this difference is clear, but you also must know far too many fanatics who simply deny the existence of the term as used by the USA government.

That is a very strong example of what I am talking about. It is important to define a term cognitively, and then in normative terms when appropriate. Far too many of these fanatics do not say that the normative concept of individual rights is the good and proper under rational ethics (which I hold as correct) - they say that the cognitive concept of the word "rights" does not exist at all.

Cognitive "blank-out."

There are other examples and I have projected an article on this confusion that gets caused by cognitive/normative mixups when the same word or term is used for both.

I hope this answers your question. I really don't want to go into all the bickering of last week by dragging quotes from some of the posters. When you mention Rand's heroes, I have seen that minds turn off instead of turning on like they should with Ayn Rand, then acrimony starts instead of discussion.

Anyway, if you have another question, I will gladly answer it. But for others, I am leaving this discussion. I have said clearly what I wanted to say and I am tired of bickering with those who deny things like the existence of a word or the existence of an act when a strong emotional issue is involved.

Michael

Saturday, November 5, 2005 - 8:10pm

I am sorry but I cannot verify your claim about what you "have observed with many Objectivists" when you provide no examples. And I don't see, either, why it would start any kind of fight to quote a sentence from, say, Peikoff, Branden or Kelley, one they actually wrote or said (with proper references).
If I write that many conservatives do not consider choice important, I should at least come up with one or two (and this is a real example, since George Will has once derided choice: “much damage is done when we define human beings not a social beings--not in terms of morally serious roles [citizen, marriage partner, parent, etc.]--but only with reference to the watery idea of a single, morally empty capacity of ‘choice.’ Politics becomes empty; citizenship, too.” [George Will, “What Courts Are Teaching,” Newsweek, December 7, 1998, p. 98]).

Saturday, November 5, 2005 - 9:54pm

OK Tibor.

On that level (or maybe a little more recent) I will be glad to search for things. I suspect that on rights I will find much more with Libertarians than with Objectivists, (frankly, what I read of Peikoff in OPAR was quite good about rights), but I will check all my other sources at hand. Also there are other words and principles where the cognitive/normative thing has caused a bit of a cognitive blank-out, and I will search for a small handful of examples. Most of the things by the big guns I have noticed has been in passing and not as obvious as with posters, so I will have to revisit my memories and look up the essays.

My recent search that I mentioned above was confined to the Solo threads, and I did not want to revisit all that acrimony, especially as I started rereading it. Several of those posters were the kinds of Objectivists I was referring to - who did a lot of cognitive blank-outs. They were the ones I was interacting with. Lots of noise but not much by way of rational argument.

(I would like to except Ed Thompson and Bill Dwyer, who despite the cognitive error, provided me with awfully good discussion on one thread and ended up understanding what I was talking about.)

As I am preparing a larger work on this, your criticism and "keeping me honest" and "raising the bar" are extremely welcome right now. The Rand example I provided is part of the source of what I have already started preparing.

After all that hairsplitting and mischaracterization I have just been through, this is a breath of fresh air. I am honored, sir. You are correct. Thank you.

Give me a day or so. I will be back on this.

Michael

Sunday, November 6, 2005 - 8:36am

Ok Michael.

Sunday, November 6, 2005 - 10:52am

It seems to me that the cognitive almost always leads to the normative automatically in a developed, educated consciousness. "Turning the other cheek" evaluated cognitively only is just an observation of a physical act, according to Michael K. But one doesn't know that actually turning the other cheek is what is going on, for it is a normative act requiring a normative evaluation. The person doing the turning is not an observer, cognitively, of his own behavior; he is already in the normative context. The person who, say, slapped him is an observer of the result of that slap--turning--but his context is normative. He might then "blank out" the cognitive and think the turning is appeasement and have contempt (or greater contempt) for the slapped. The contempt, though, would be normative. But aren't all acts of observation inexorably devolved by consciousness into the normative? Isn't evaluation per se normative? But you need a lot more than normative for ethics. You need right knowledge and choices. An animal without the ability to form concepts can still act normatively--that is in its best interest(s). It evaluates perceptions emotionally--as do humans in part--and acts as best it can in its best interest(s). Any animal can fail in that endeavor for whatever reason(s).

I submit that the correct way to deal with the normative being misused is to "think twice," cut once and avoid the "anti-conceptual" mentality while respecting reality above all. What I don't understand, Michael, is why you are making such a big theoretical deal about the danger of jumping to conclusions?

--Brant

Sunday, November 6, 2005 - 1:03pm

Brant,

I will answer you, since you raised an interesting point, seem actually interested in the idea, and you are not being gratuitously acrimonious (or trying to trounce a straw-man or any of those other mind games).

Animals also have emotions. Good point. If, under standard Objectivist doctrine, all emotions must have a cognitive basis, then how do nonconceptual beings do this? The obvious answer is on the perceptual level.

We are really getting into psychology here. An animal like a dog will react with fear to thunder, but he will not have anything remotely resembling an anxiety attack. (Or become depressed enough to commit suicide, for that matter.) On a very primitive level, he integrates the thunder cognitively (boom) then normatively (dangerous). And even then, his reaction is the result of a "perceptual" value judgment. The evaluation does not exist in isolation. The perception of the "boom" just might be tied to the "dangerous" because the dog's mind is wired that way (I think it is, but only in relation to volume of noise and lack of discernable source, not to "thunder" in itself), but the danger still must be identified before it is reacted to.

So, yes, there are automatic evaluations (or perceptual evaluations). But they still need sensory input, then identification (perceptual integration) before the evaluation kicks in.

Getting to the second part, my beef is when people simply say that something doesn't exist when it does. I have started calling this a cognitive "blank-out." I was told by a very dear friend off-line that the image of turning the other cheek is such a loaded term that I will not be successful in getting people to see what I am saying by using that example. I started thinking about that term "loaded."

The "load" is the normative meaning. I submit that any mental event at all that can be loaded can be unloaded. That is what I try to do in order to properly evaluate if I am on the mark or not.

When I "unload" the Christian normative meaning from the term and just see the act (before or after - you concentrated merely on the after), I see that there are similar acts under other normative "loads."

Then I essentially say, "Hey, lookee there! I never noticed that before." Then the howling starts. Ever single one of the arguments against this so far has boiled down to a virtual assertion that the Christian ideal exists independently of the act, and that any similar act is not really similar at all. But when I look at the act without the intent, I see that it is.

Why not say that real evil is evil? Why identify it incorrectly like that? Why affirm that something like the act of not retaliating in kind does not exist when and where it does, and that one must then decide whether or not that act is evil? Is a blanket blank-out somehow a "superior" way of thinking normatively?

Not for me. I want to know what I am judging. And I also sometimes want to do a check-up to see whether I am evaluating things properly. That is why I "unload" the evaluation to look at it for a minute. Checkup. (But then I "load" it back on, with any tune-ups I may have found necessary.)

I have corrected a lot of my own mistakes that way.

Michael

(Edited by Michael Stuart Kelly on 11/06, 1:07pm)

Sunday, November 6, 2005 - 1:59pm

MSK,

I've been on this forum less than a week, and may I make an observation? Saying that those who disagree with you have "their minds turned off" or have a "cognitive blank-out" or "make a lot of noise without rational argument" are NOT arguments themselves.

Furthermore, promoting yourself as the gatekeeper of "truth" and "facts" isn't particularly effective either.

The people who I have met who I consider *honest* do not go around repeatedly and loudly proclaiming that: "All I am interested in is the facts" or "All I care about is the truth"...much less OVER and OVER again. They don't have to--it is manifest in their method of thinking. They don't toss aside principles and context for the express purpose of promoting their ~pet ideas~. Their respect for facts is readily apparent from the quality and clarity of their arguments.

My advice? Drop the empty self-promotion and grandstanding and focus on the clarity of your arguments. Hell, even the people who say they agree with you can't seem to agree on what exactly you are saying. That should tell you something.

Regards,
Michael

Sunday, November 6, 2005 - 2:03pm

Well, I may have gotten off on the wrong foot here, Michael (K), because of that loaded term. It wouldn't be the first time. Which brings up the point about how valuable perseverance can be in these discussions.

--Brant

PS: I don't have time to closely read your last post just now.

(Edited by Brant Gaede on 11/06, 2:14pm)

(Edited by Brant Gaede on 11/06, 2:15pm)

Sunday, November 6, 2005 - 3:30pm

Michael M: MSK has been run at if not run over so much lately by all too many that he deserves a break from constantly having to defend himself in shorthand.

--Brant

Sunday, November 6, 2005 - 5:45pm

Brant,

I hear ya. I am new to the forum and my intent was not to "run him over". You know how my style is.

But really, Brant, I am a little sick and tired of the "Anything Goes" brand of Objectivism where certain people try to integrate absurd ideas into Objectivism (like the idea that it supports "turning the other cheek" as a "tactic").

I meant the challenge I gave to MSK--find something, anything, in AR's writing on ethics that supports such a claim. There are plenty of quotes to the contrary, like the one I presented in post #19, so I am challenging to support his position. And I don't mean by taking a concrete-bound observation then twisting it with a misapplication of AR's conceptual framework. This just does not cut it for me.

I am really interested to see if MSK can come up with something more explicit from AR.

Regards,
Michael

Sunday, November 6, 2005 - 6:40pm

MSK, in post #18 you claimed that "cognitive concept" was Ayn Rand's terminology and further claimed that a quote from her in your article would demonstrate that.

Well, I looked and the closest I could find is where you quoted Ayn Rand from "The Psycho-Epistemology of Art":

"While cognitive abstractions identify the facts of reality, normative abstractions evaluate the facts, thus prescribing a choice of values and a course of action. Cognitive abstractions deal with that which is; normative abstractions deal with that which ought to be (in the realms open to man's choice)."

Abstractions are not concepts. Concepts are not abstractions. Concepts are not even cognitive abstractions. Concepts are integrated cognitive abstractions. Integration is an essential part of concept formation and the definition of concept.

I would also like to say that my understanding of the Christian notion of turning the other cheek is not retaliating in any way, shape, or form. Your "in kind" bit is not anything I've heard before.

Sunday, November 6, 2005 - 6:25pm

MM: He's trying to talk about is and ought on this thread. Let's wait for his next post. I suggest you reread this thread, as I did, to see if what he is saying is what you think he is saying. I do wish he had the gift of lucidity. However, one can be both lucid and wrong. Who else, btw, is trying to bring up and deal with serious philosophical issues on SOLO?

--Brant

(Edited by Brant Gaede on 11/06, 10:06pm)