RoR: Forum

Even the most nihilist person will usually fight like a tiger if you hold his head under water.

Post 1

Friday, June 30, 2006 - 7:30am

Keith, you crack me up (and you're right, of course)!

Ed
[a "choice" that "everybody" chooses -- is similar to an automatic function]

Post 2

Friday, June 30, 2006 - 7:43am

Let me make something more clear here:

I'm arguing that it is "human" to (initially) choose to live (ie. it's part of morality). As Peikoff said, plants and animals do it (and rational folks, too). It is "natural."

Now, to be sure, later on in one's life (after having chosen to live for several years) -- one might adopt the anti-reason, anti-life philosophy of a suicide bomber. But, and this is the kicker, but this doesn't "let you off the hook" morally. Morally, you ought to be condemned for your choice (and -- if caught in the act -- legally restrained, of course).

Euthanasia is a different story though -- as you are the recipient of value for your life. If your life has LOST net value to you (in the case of chronic, unbearable pain -- for instance), then euthanasia "becomes" moral, in that instance.

Ed

Post 3

Friday, June 30, 2006 - 7:56am

Now, in trying to clarify, I've gone and said something unclear (I hate it, when that happens!).

Above, I said that ...

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... it is "human" to (initially) choose to live (ie. it's part of morality).
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But this 'choice' presents itself in indirect ways. Keith brings up the choice to fight like a tiger -- if someone's holding your head under water. Other indirect ways that the choice is presented are the choice to eat, sleep, play, work, love, think, etc.

If you asked kids if they want to live, all of them will say yes -- up to a certain age (and barring unbearable abuse). What's astonishing is that kids sometimes go through circumstances that might be unbearable for many adults -- and they still choose to live, in what many adults might describe as a living hell.

Ed

Post 4

Friday, June 30, 2006 - 4:51pm

"Failure to thrive" in an infant is a pre-moral choice not to live.

Spontaneous abortions could be in the same class, or -- considering the cognitive state of a fetus or embryo -- it could be a pre-pre-moral choice.

Whales beach themselves and I am not sure that all cetaceans are rational.. Some are, but I am not fully informed on all the species that beach themselves. If some individual whales who seem to "commit suicide" are from species of lower cognitive ability, then that would be a pre-moral choice to die, the kind of choice that a dog or horse might make -- if the word "choice" applies to them. How else to explain a dog that ceases to live for no apparent reason when its master dies?

(I apologize for jumping in here. I infer from Ed's statements that this "pre-moral choice debate" must be well-known to others, but this is the first I have heard of it. Perhaps a URL or something might help so that others can benefit fully.)

Post 5

Friday, June 30, 2006 - 8:03pm

Here you go, Michael ...

http://rebirthofreason.com/Forum/GeneralForum/0757.shtml

Ed
[I'm with Peikoff (and against Tara Smith), ie. choosing life is the 1st rational decision one can make]

Post 6

Monday, July 3, 2006 - 8:40pm

So then there is no pre-moral choice to live--is that the point of this piece? What remains a puzzle, though, is how one could have free will without also being capable of such a pre-moral choice. What I mean by pre-moral is a choice that sets in motion one's consciousness of alternatives, makes it possible for one to become aware of different ways one can continue to live. It seems more sensible to suppose that some such choice--or initiative--starts off the process or function of awareness and that it might not have done so. That is consistent with the idea that people have free will, that they can do something they might not have done--begin to be aware of reality and live in line with this awareness, or not! (The exact mechanism of this may be a problem to identify but it is not the only issue about which we reason by way of hypothetical reconstruction--virtually all of cosmology goes that way.)

Post 7

Monday, July 3, 2006 - 11:19pm

Thank you for the engagement, Tibor. It is an honor to debate someone of your caliber.

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So then there is no pre-moral choice to live--is that the point of this piece?
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The point was that the choice to live (and it IS a choice, though most often, tacit, or implicit) is actually "moral," and not "pre-" moral. Taking my niece's child as a concrete example, her desperation to remain conscious (rather than to nap for an hour -- ie. to lose an hour of consciousness) was a choice to remain interactive with reality.

Given previous contact with reality (and ALL thinking agents have a previous contact with reality), along with a 'natural human affection' for interaction with reality, it would be immoral to choose not to continue in life.

Tibor, have you ever met a person who first looked at reality and said: "No thanks." Let me answer for you. You haven't. Now, here's the kicker: How is it that I KNOW (rather than believe) that you've never met such a person? What is it about humans that 'precludes' this particular reaction to reality?

Having spent a single joyous moment -- whether in a mother's hug, or in a cool breeze on a hot day -- humans, even toddlers, realize the potential joy of continued existence. Having tasted some joy (as against, let's say, a less-joyous background), one CANNOT 'morally' choose to cease to exist.

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What remains a puzzle, though, is how one could have free will without also being capable of such a pre-moral choice.
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As I said above, after experiencing 'some' joy -- the choice is no longer "pre-moral."

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It seems more sensible to suppose that some such choice--or initiative--starts off the process or function of awareness and that it might not have done so.
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Before experiencing any joy, it would indeed, be pre-moral, to choose to live. But, existentially, this is not ever the case.

Ed

Post 8

Tuesday, July 4, 2006 - 5:24am

To look at reality is a choice one might not make. One might just remain dormant, as it were. Sure one doesn't meet such persons because they don't make it too far along into their lives.

Post 9

Tuesday, July 4, 2006 - 7:54am

Thanks for the link, Ed. I read through much of that, though I did not follow all the side threads. I found this:

William Dwyer Post 17: Smith is confusing the prerationality of the desire to live with the prerationality of the decision to live. The desire is prerational; the decision is not.

That is consonant with my assertions about failure to thrive. You can talk about e.e.cummings greenly leaping joy, but failure to thrive is real, and pre-rational.

There are many "problems" or perhaps "meta-problems" with discussions like these. I believe that at some level, these statements from us are "art" rather than 'science" -- "sense of life" if you will. When Ayn Rand said, "Man chooses to..." she meant "Ayn Rand chose to..." She did not know "man" in the abstract. She did not even seem to know one man very well when you get right down to it. She only knew herself.

Are we discussing a validated poll (Harris, Pew, etc.)? Are we psychologists discussing our patients? Other than contexts such as those, we are all speaking about ourselves.

Yes, for you, Ed Thompson, denying the joyous wonder of your productive life would be irrational and therefore immoral. If you were two years old and had only been abused (or perhaps only not coddled and cooed) the last 700 days, you might just not wake up some morning. That would be a pre-rational choice not to live. My sister-in-law recently died from cancer. She fought for 18 months under a condition that should have been terminal in six weeks. (And, yes, she was an Objectivist, and accomplished in several fields.)

One reason that doctors do not like to give people a timeline is that they believe it. That could be an interesting if cruel experiment, you know. For one day, every emergency room tells every visitor that they will die in 24 hours. Then tally the statistics. The people who live might be Christians or Scientologists or Objectivists, but my money is on their having a strong sense of life, regardless of what powers it. That theory is hard for Objectivists to reconcile. We here on RoR as before on Solo and as other Oist websites get people who claim to admire the works of Ayn Rand, even though they refuse to give up God (or whatever else). Strict Objectivism demands that these whim-woshipping social metaphysical muscle mystics lay down and die -- but they don't... because they love life and they perceive a Creator within all life.

On the other hand, I often wonder what keeps some Objectivists alive...

Similarly, your opinions about animals reflect your expectations. Our cats do not design bridges, granted. However, they do choose -- to go in, to go out, to come get us to open the door, to not bother right now, to be really uninterested, etc., etc.. It is known that when a dog's master dies, the dog can make a (pre-rational) choice not to live.

Post 10

Tuesday, July 4, 2006 - 9:12am

Tibor,

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Sure one doesn't meet such persons because they don't make it too far along into their lives.

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You crack me up! Actually, Michael quotes Bill with a proposition that demands my rational assent ...

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William Dwyer Post 17: Smith is confusing the prerationality of the desire to live with the prerationality of the decision to live. The desire is prerational; the decision is not.
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Well put, Bill (and thank you, Michael).

Ed
[Tara Smith was -- and may still be -- confused on this matter]
(Edited by Ed Thompson
on 7/04, 9:43am)

Post 11

Tuesday, July 4, 2006 - 9:42am