Precedent, Policy, and Principle in Objectivist Moral Reasoning

Well, a quibbling we shall go :-)

You said, "What flavor drink to order can be entirely emotional, and still be completely valid. One's emotions will reflect precedents, one could say, but there is no long-range consequence to be considered, so nothing is being unwisely ignored."

I disagree. Deciding to make the enjoyment of this or that flavor the criteria should be a reasoned decision and the flavor-sensation enjoyment is a goal that weighs short-term and long-term consequences. how about the long term consequence of "I'm 20 lbs overweight, I've decided to loose weight, that drink puts me over my calorie limit for today, that would make me in violation of a commitment I made, it would have the effect of weakening my will power", etc.

Try to find an action so tiny and of so little consequence that it could never feature a part in denial or evasion. We are actively at work on a meta level at all times. What is the appropriate level and kind of consciousness for this moment? What are the consequences of this form of decision making that I'm contemplating? We can't control our actions without controlling our consciousness - that is the essence of volition. How can you even know when you are allowing a decision to be made on emotional grounds and that it is okay without first deciding to do so (at some level) and if you build in habits of NOT deciding, how will you ever regain captaincy of your destiny?

You said, "There is no reason to choose one [flavor] versus the other, in some cases." Sure there is. One "decides" that they want the taste of chocolate, after weighing any reasons for not choosing otherwise. Choosing, in a very minor decision, to go with sensation A over sensation B, isn't the same as not having the appropriate (in this case, very minor) amount of rational control between stimulus and action. The very nature of the human mind tells us to not push decisions out of the conscious spotlight since the places they go aren't where we want a locus of control to reside - in small things, big things, in principle and practice.
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On the legal/philosophical quibbles I don't feel like saying any more - we seem close enough in understanding each others position.

Post 21

Monday, January 19, 2009 - 5:15pm

One point, so it's just a "quib,"
In some cases, there are no relevant considerations that weigh in on the available options. I have been there. Like, which side of the bed do you want, when I don't care. I really don't care, and there is no discernable reason to prefer one over the other. Some people might have reason to prefer one, sure, but in my case, I can't find any. Or, which of two particular restaurants to go to. I don't care, and don't find any basis for preferring one to the other, not cost, menu, closeness, ambience, etc. Any two particulars are different, but their difference doesn't automatically matter to me!
You know we sometimes give a choice away. We say, "You choose." Sometimes this is to benefit the reciever, but sometimes it is because we can't find a basis on which to choose.
I think the claim that there is always a reasoned basis for actual choices has to be proved.
In your answer to me, you say the person decides he wants chocolate. Fine, but that isn't the situation I am referring to. In my situation, I don't care which flavor I get, so I can't decide I want chocolate. I can decide to order chocolate, but without having desired that flavor. It's a forced choice.
If I claim that I sometimes find myself faced with a trivial choice, for which I can find no basis for preference, and you claim that you have never been in that situation, nor do you believe such exists, I think the onus is on you to prove I am mistaken. And I'd be amazed if you could!

Post 22

Monday, January 19, 2009 - 6:25pm

Mindy, I'm not going to step up and prove anything to you. I'm just going to offer some insight into what I'm trying to say - it isn't the same as what you are arguing against. You can examine it or not, agree with it or not. Up to you.

I'm not talking about "considerations" or externalities like a restaurant or a side of the bed. Nor am I talking about ones values or preferences for those externalities. I'm talking about our exercise over our minds. The operating principles that are in play even with tiny little decisions.

Our mental mechanism is such that we are always choosing how to choose. It is like an impulse comes flashing into our awareness (maybe from someone asking us what restaurant we want to go to), and we decide how to answer. I may decide that I don't care, and I say so. I really have lots of choices - it happens in the context of some kind of relationship - is it romantic, and I ask her to pick the kind or restaurant that would most warm the cockles of her heart. Or it is a business lunch, and I say, "I picked yesterday, you pick today," dressing my indifference up as fairness. There isn't some kind of magical elf between my ears that steps in and formats my reply on those occasions when I have no strong preferences. I am still choosing.

If your introspection and your cognitive faculties were not involved, how would you know when you were letting others make a decision because you are despondent, or giving in to a control freak to avoid a conflict, or denying healthy assertiveness out of fear of not being feminine, etc., etc.

I'm not saying that people can't or won't let emotions decide, and I'm not saying that people don't use emotions as if they held some kind of truth. And I'm not saying that there are instances were we have no preference between some options. I am saying that we should never pretend that choosing is NOT what is at the base of every volitional shift. Even those where we have no preference regarding the externalities.

Post 23

Monday, January 19, 2009 - 6:36pm

Well, Steve, this is your baby, since you say you took exception to what I had posted. I said there were trivial choices that had no basis in reason. There is no basis, no matter how hard one thinks about it. You just don't care which. If you oppose that position, oppose it. If that isn't where you disagree, in your "important quibble" please do clarify.
We choose to focus, yes. What does that have to do with it?

Post 24

Monday, January 19, 2009 - 7:04pm

I used to agree with your view, Mindy, but over the years I've come to think otherwise - and that Steve's view is the real correct one, even if those choices are not consciously of any difference from coin tossing... most persons do not do much in real introspection, just shallow 'look-see's, if that... "the examined life" is not an idle phrase, but one rarely really bothered with by most - thus the idea of equivalencies in choices seem not just plausible but most likely... but still wrong, because there are always differences involved, always a ranking measurement of importance, however minutely... and if there is no importance, then there is no interest or want - the one follows the other, the one implies a 'why' somewhere...

Post 25

Monday, January 19, 2009 - 11:09pm

Mindy, are you getting prickly about this? Having been through storms at sea, I learned too well not to put myself in harms way for no good reason. :-)

I'll assume, for the moment, you aren't getting peeved. And I'll work on these assumptions:

First assumption: We all periodically change directions (in the sense that without some stimuli and a reaction to it, you wouldn't have done exactly what you did.) Like where you make a response to someone's question about where you'd like to eat. If they hadn't asked, you wouldn't have answered. (The alternative to that is that we never intervene in our life - no control - predestined)

Next assumption: Somehow, internally, you accessed some mental routines to determine how you wanted to answer that question (playfully, quasi-automatically, or with some thought first about what your stomach was telling you, or with some thought about the person who asked, etc.) Things are getting examined even if you choose not to pay attention - not everything arise to the forefront of consciousness and hits you over the head with its importance and urgency.

Next assumption: At any given time there are many things impinging upon our conscious focus. Background mood, feelings left over from the preceding moment, feeling aroused, how ever tiny, about the new stimuli, awareness of new items in front of your consciousness (any diet considerations, dislikes about food the questioner doesn't know of, etc.) Mental life, not just in the subconscious, or the fuzzy area between consciousness and subconsciousness, but in the conscious area itself is more complex than we usually think.

Next assumption: We are the active force in setting the way we focus on the impinging items. We can focus tightly, loosely, evade, deny, etc. (evade or deny are a couple of impulses that can come up as impinging competitors for our attention - we may want to flee when so and so asks us to lunch). If you don't accept any form of volition then this is where you get off this train.

Final assumption: We have to volitionally make some kind of maneuver of the consciousness to select our treatment - and thus create our next instance of consciousness. One doesn't have to get out spread-sheets or do syllogistic acrobatics when it seems like a simple, "I have no preferences what so ever" - but it is still reason at work. Reason and 'will.' We are constantly orchestrating our next moment, and on multiple levels.

Post 26

Tuesday, January 20, 2009 - 10:20am

Me, prickly?? Never.
I do understand what you are talking about, Steve, but it is immaterial. Choosing to focus the needed amount to be able to make a choice rationally and morally is not the choosing that makes up the choice! Your claim was (wasn't it?) that no choice, no matter how trivial, was made without moral reasoning involved. There are choices, in my experience, that have to be made, but for which I can not, despite trying, find a basis for a preference. The difference the alternatives of the choice present don't matter to me, even if I try hard to find some way in which they might matter.
To put it in your terms, after choosing to focus fully on the issue, I am still unable to find a basis on which to make certain forced choices.
Actually, I stopped and thought about this before I wrote the original statement.

Post 27

Tuesday, January 20, 2009 - 10:42am

Mindy, if you agree that some kind of choosing to focus goes on before you have a completed choice, then I'm happy - that is what I was most concerned with - those moments that I think of as "choice-points" where volition lets us drive.

When you mention "moral reasoning" that has a very formal sound to it. I would just say that we compare the offered values (this restaurant versus that) and find no emotional preference. If we experience no discomfort with result, then we don't need any formal reasoning and the "they are of equal value" judgment response is enough. It is a tiny flash of reason that decides no further or deeper "moral reasoning" is needed.

There is something complex that goes on in updating and shaping our emotional response to a given restaurant based upon our current context - but that is subconscious - a kind of maintenance plus a librarian-like retrieval function performed on a bit our emotional structure's content as it comes near the surface to be presented for the comparison.

Post 28

Thursday, March 12, 2009 - 2:42pm