Kurt, I've known happy people, enjoying being alive and loving, but without a thought for finding a purpose in life, indeed, not really getting what that idea is once they had got free of religion. An overall purpose to their conduct or a need to have a large long-time purpose(s) in place for themselves is foreign to them. Foreign, I can tell, just in the way that having a bucket-list for my life is foreign to me. When I wake in the morning I'm in my projects, setting my plans in continuation right from where I left off the day before. And it is enticing, day after day, year after year.
I concur with Rand that people do not automatically desire to live. And I think there is sense to saying that doing one's positive projects and one's enjoyments, and Rand's special-emphasis one also—choosing to think—are occasions of affirming life and in an organic way choosing to live. I suppose I could think of friends who are having a happy life, but no sense of a need for an overall organizing arc or purpose, as really setting continuing to live and have good things in life as their purpose though they don't know it or feel a lack for not knowing it. But that seems presumptuous, and I think it more likely the case, that I just need to question my common models of psychodynamics and models of good sort of human life in some respects (which is not far from Rand's models) in how widely they are the organization of happy people in the world. ln other words, people, good and happy ones, may have some pretty deep differences, even though we are fine and loving with each other.
Lastly, with Rand, I take the existential direct choice to live to be at least always in the background for all human beings. The boy on the bicycle in The Fountainhead is cast as being in an existential episode over continuing life, and I know that comes around in some, perhaps many, real lives.
"[W]e are born with certain values, which are experienced as felt needs (desires for food, love, stimulation, mastery of skills etc.). These unchosen needs are the foundation of any healthy value system."
We have unchosen, innate needs for sure, but what's an example of an innate human value?
---
"Our earliest needs or innate values are first experienced from infancy as hungers."
I don’t synonymize needs with human values. Needs are metaphysical—i.e., are the given—while human values are epistemological—i.e., actively identified or passively absorbed from one's environment.
---
"To demand a derivation is pure rationalism, unrelated to human nature […]"
What if that derivation is grounded in sense perception? Wouldn’t that be non-rationalistic?
---
"At some level these are self-evident goods because they make us feel alive, and they make us feel alive because they tend, if pursued, to promote life."
Doesn’t that description of reducing feeling alive to promoting life render those activities as _not_ self-evident goods? In other words, it takes an epistemological act, such as reduction, to evidence the good.
---
"The desire for effectiveness appears to be inborn and appears to be present even in the higher animals."
But aren’t there people who don’t desire for effectiveness? There are plenty of people content to be primarily consumers as opposed to producers.
---
"Why should I choose to live […]"
John Paquette pointed out this error I also committed: “Should” invokes morality, but the choice to live is pre-moral. So instead of asking a moral question about a pre-moral issue, one should ask non-moral questions like those that are metaphysical or epistemological: "'Can I enjoy life? Is living worth the trouble?'" "'Can I get more out of this life than I put into it? Can I benefit from existence? Or is life actually hell? Is this world something I can love, or will I forever hate it? Do I love what life may offer, or do I despise the burdens life puts on me? I never made this world. Do I love it, or do I hate it? Would I enjoy making it better? Or is any such effort an admission of defeat in my battle for the life I wish for? Can I live on earth, or is heaven the only home I will accept without being angry?'"
---
"But that claim is complicated by what seems to be the rationality or at least acceptability of choosing risky occupations such as lumberjacking or dangerous pursuits such as mountain climbing."
I would say that choosing risky occupations is rational if the risk is worth it for its promotion of one's life.
---
"I am suggesting that since existence and identity are corollary concepts, to choose one is to choose the other."
Are you saying that to choose life is to also choose death? Or are you saying that to choose existence is to also choose identity? If the latter, what's the significance of choosing identity?
---
"And the constituent activities of living form the identity of our being. To choose to live = choosing the constituent activities of living. This analysis seems to me to dissolve the dichotomy of survival versus flourishing that has bedeviled discussion of the Objectivist ethics for decades."
Can you elaborate how this "dissolves the dichotomy of survival versus flourishing"? I view flourishing as an instance—a species—of survival, namely that of surviving _well_. Is that still a dichotomy?
---
"The existential choice to live is not the fundamental choice that human beings face. Our fundamental choice is an ongoing journey to lift up our life as felt valuers and incorporate it into a conceptual level of functioning without doing violence to either."
The choice to live is fundamental though because _every_ choice and action implies that choice to live (or not live). This fundamental implication cannot be said about "lift[ing] up our life as felt valuers and incorporate[ing] it into a conceptual level of functioning without doing violence to either."
Thank you, Audrey, for your detailed commentary on my essay. I will have to respond in pieces.
"[W]e are born with certain values, which are experienced as felt needs (desires for food, love, stimulation, mastery of skills etc.). These unchosen needs are the foundation of any healthy value system."
We have unchosen, innate needs for sure, but what's an example of an innate human value?
KK: Food is an innate human value. Every child seeks food, prompted by hunger. Love is an innate human value. Every child seeks love, prompted by loneliness. This pattern continues into adulthood unless we get seriously off-track, usually due to mental illness, such as anorexia or a seriously twisted philosophy such as religious asceticism...
----
"Our earliest needs or innate values are first experienced from infancy as hungers."
I don’t synonymize needs with human values. Needs are metaphysical—i.e., are the given—while human values are epistemological—i.e., actively identified or passively absorbed from one's environment.
KK My point is that little or no initial choice is necessary to transform a need, as experienced as a hunger, into a value. We don't need to think philosophically or even conceptually to want to seek out food. Later on, as we become more fully rational, we need to fit our needs and hungers into something like a philosophical framework, but even then, the source in our basic nature cannot be cut off.
----
"To demand a derivation is pure rationalism, unrelated to human nature […]"
What if that derivation is grounded in sense perception? Wouldn’t that be non-rationalistic?
KK But the sense perception comes first. You are already a valuing being long before you are a philosophizing being. Philosophy recognizes and affirms--it does not derive. This is one of my major points.
----
"At some level these are self-evident goods because they make us feel alive, and they make us feel alive because they tend, if pursued, to promote life."
Doesn’t that description of reducing feeling alive to promoting life render those activities as _not_ self-evident goods? In other words, it takes an epistemological act, such as reduction, to evidence the good.
KK I am not talking about reduction. I am talking about the mechanism. Playing makes us feel good, not because we know it promotes life, but because it promotes life whether we are thinking about it or not. It is the satisfaction of a felt need. This is one of the philosophical bad habits that must be broken to really understand my points: values (which start as inborn) are the foundation of ethics. Something would have to be terribly wrong with a person if he needed to prove that food, love, and the rest have to be reduced to. Philosophy in no way proves that we should pursue certain things, not in a fundamental sense. Philosophy recognizes, affirms, develops, and untangles what was already there. Being philosophical comes logically and developmentally after being a creature with values.
-----
"The desire for effectiveness appears to be inborn and appears to be present even in the higher animals."
But aren’t there people who don’t desire for effectiveness? There are plenty of people content to be primarily consumers as opposed to producers.
KK I am not an expert on child development, but I think it is safe to say that children generally want to see whether they can make a tower of blocks that doesn't fall down. As for adults who don't care about mastery of skills, I think they have gotten off the healthy developmental path and need to retrace their steps. This might require the aid of a therapist.
----
"Why should I choose to live […]"
John Paquette pointed out this error I also committed: “Should” invokes morality, but the choice to live is pre-moral. So instead of asking a moral question about a pre-moral issue, one should ask non-moral questions like those that are metaphysical or epistemological: "'Can I enjoy life? Is living worth the trouble?'" "'Can I get more out of this life than I put into it? Can I benefit from existence? Or is life actually hell? Is this world something I can love, or will I forever hate it? Do I love what life may offer, or do I despise the burdens life puts on me? I never made this world. Do I love it, or do I hate it? Would I enjoy making it better? Or is any such effort an admission of defeat in my battle for the life I wish for? Can I live on earth, or is heaven the only home I will accept without being angry?'
KK Actually, I pretty much agree. What we are talking about is whether I can be happy or not. If I can be, then life is the only logical choice. My point is that happiness results from the satisfaction of one's felt needs in the context of a reasonably rational context. I would regard these needs as unquestionable. We only question them when something has gone wrong with us.
----
"But that claim is complicated by what seems to be the rationality or at least acceptability of choosing risky occupations such as lumberjacking or dangerous pursuits such as mountain climbing."
I would say that choosing risky occupations is rational if the risk is worth it for its promotion of one's life.
KK I agree. The problem is that there are LESS dangerous pursuits that Objectivism would find unacceptable. Danger pe se is not the relevant criterion. Satisfaction of one's felt needs in the context of one's biography and temperament is key.
----
"I am suggesting that since existence and identity are corollary concepts, to choose one is to choose the other."
Are you saying that to choose life is to also choose death? Or are you saying that to choose existence is to also choose identity? If the latter, what's the significance of choosing identity?
KK I really don't where you get the death thing! I am saying that since, as Rand states, Existence is Identity, to choose one is to choose the other. Choosing identity in the case of life is to choose, concretely, all of the activities that constitute living. I would say that these activities are largely grounded in our felt needs, as they mature when we rationally mature.
----
"And the constituent activities of living form the identity of our being. To choose to live = choosing the constituent activities of living. This analysis seems to me to dissolve the dichotomy of survival versus flourishing that has bedeviled discussion of the Objectivist ethics for decades."
Can you elaborate how this "dissolves the dichotomy of survival versus flourishing"? I view flourishing as an instance—a species—of survival, namely that of surviving _well_. Is that still a dichotomy?
KK I don't regard it as a dichotomy, but some Objectivists (e.g. David Kelley) have argued that something is a value only if it contributes to your long-term survival. I think that is intellectually reductionistic and that there are values that do not need to be justified, only conceptualized. That's what I mean by rationalism.
----
"The existential choice to live is not the fundamental choice that human beings face. Our fundamental choice is an ongoing journey to lift up our life as felt valuers and incorporate it into a conceptual level of functioning without doing violence to either."
The choice to live is fundamental though because _every_ choice and action implies that choice to live (or not live). This fundamental implication cannot be said about "lift[ing] up our life as felt valuers and incorporate[ing] it into a conceptual level of functioning without doing violence to either."
KK My very point is that my choice is not to live or die per se. My choice is always to be a better valuer or not, given that values are based on innate needs (as developed along with reason). That means understanding that we need a life-based ethic. But as I keep saying, the purpose of that ethic is to recognize, affirm, develop, and untangle what was already there. Call it a difference of emphasis if you like, but I would say that the perceptual/affective functioning of life has primacy over the conceptual, as important as it is to fit life into a conceptual framework.
“Food is an innate human value. Every child seeks food, prompted by hunger. Love is an innate human value. Every child seeks love, prompted by loneliness.”
Do you believe that humans are born with innate ideas? I don’t think that humans are born with an innate desire for—and thereby identification of—food or love. Food and love are learned and if they are to be values, are relational between valuers and goals. There are even people who, having chosen the goal of asceticism or death, don’t value food or love, corroborating the relational—as opposed to intrinsic—nature of values.
---
Are you implying that the satisfaction of felt needs is the standard by which to identify whether something is a value? If so, I find that problematic: To be a value, (A) that felt need would need to be validated as life promoting (needs, felt or not, can be death promoting) and (B) how that felt need is satisfied, i.e., the means of achieving, would also need to be validated as life promoting. This is true regardless of the age or developmental stage of the individual.
---
“[…] some Objectivists (e.g. David Kelley) have argued that something is a value only if it contributes to your long-term survival.”
How does Rand and Peikoff argue differently?
---
I agree that “the perceptual/affective functioning of life has primacy over the conceptual.”
I don't believe that people are born with innate ideas, but I do believe that people are born with innate values, manifested as desires or hungers. Babies don't choose to value food or love: it's built in.
As adults we continue to have these desires. They can be negated by a perverse philosophy, but I would say that they did not arrive at such ideas (as in asceticism) by a purely intellectual process. Such a large deviation from natural values is a sign of mental illness and as such does not count against my claims.
I don't think our basic needs (and hungers) require intellectual validation. At a basic level we don't have to explicitly connect them to their life-promoting potentials. That said, I think that as a person matures in their rationality, they will start making such connections, probably in a haphazard way. That's where philosophy comes in. It "tutors" our desires--helps them find their proper ends, untangles their conflicts, and puts them into a conceptual framework. That's what I mean when I say "the perfection of desire." Reason doesn't in the main *create* desire except in the sense as it corrects mistakes and *affirms* the underlying needs. Our innate values provide the passion that philosophy helps channel.
We are born valuing beings. Philosophy just helps do the job better - more rationally.
I don't know whether Rand and Peikoff agree with Kelley or not. I am pretty sure you can spot someone who disagrees by their use of the word "eudaemonia."
I suspect that our fundamental point of contention is whether values can be innate. I now realize that it's possible—as _implicit_ values—and the rest of your reply logically follows from establishing the existence of innate—implicit—values. Are implicit values what you mean by innate values?
Perhaps the confusion comes from the philosophical term "innate ideas." That's not the only use of the word "innate." It's just Latin for "inborn." That's what I mean. Values such as food, love, and a bit later, stimulation and mastery of skills, are basically inborn. Do you think that would be clearer? It would be easy enough to change.
Yep, "inborn" is what I mean by "innate." Maybe I'm not communicating clearly enough.
I first contested your notion of innate values because I thought that having values involves identification. I now retract my contesting because values can be implicit, and implictness implies the absence of identification.
This is a great read, Kurt, with so much valuable information included. I haven't spent too much time in philosophical circles- my socializing (whether on social media or in-person) tends to gravitate towards the artistically-minded. I have found that quite a few who deem themselves highly philosophically sound treat their philosophical beliefs as incredibly dogmatic (though they'd never admit this). Whereas, artists I have had conversations with are much more philosophically inquisitive, rather than philosophical dogmatic. I'm curious about your thoughts on this matter. I love the integrative approach of your essay. And I love the literary references too. I think, because you are both very philosophical and very artistic, you integrate well without it stunting creativity, a questioning mind, etc. It's just so strange to me, I'm finding with these "philosophers" I referenced in the beginning of my comment, the more scientific they are, the more dogmatic they are. It's as if they've replaced religion with philosophy and science. I'm rambling now, but I'm curious about your thoughts on the state of philosophy. My experiences with its talking heads have, unfortunately for the most part, been a bit of a lost in translation scenario. It's left much to be desired (if I may offer a small pun involving your title ;)) Loving your substack posts!
Thank you for reading my essay, Rebecca! You are one of what I call my "ideal readers": the people I am most aiming at and whom I think will most understand and benefit from what I have to say.
I have long noticed the dogmatism and rigidity among philosophers, as you mention. This is often (not always) true even of Objectivists. Rand set a bad example, because so much of what she had to say comes off as pronouncements: she seems to have figured that an intelligent reader could verify her statements for himself. So, a lot her fans just ape her words and do not spell out the proofs or meanings of the ideas.
Add to this the general lack of curiosity about the world that many Oists have. Rand has told them all they need to know about all things philosophical and artistic. One thing that makes me different is that I have explored a lot of thinkers on my own, including thinkers that Rand might not have approved of. (Horrors!) Judging by the variety of topics you write about, I would say that you too have a questing spirit, and that is one of the reasons I like you. :-)
I so appreciate your kind words, Kurt! I have to admit you are one of the few philosophers out there who has maintained a high level of curiosity. I can tell by your writing how well-rounded of a thinker you are. The Stoics and Oists in particular appear to be rather... linear?... when I try and engage with them. It's a my way or the highway kind of attitude with quite a few unwritten, insider rules that don't make any sense to me. The philosophical clubs feel rather closed off, and that's in large part due to several of the philosophies' most active voices. Like you, I enjoy reading different perspectives- pair that with a high level of empathy- I think that makes me more artist than "philosopher" 😅 I'm so glad to have your work to read because it has been a breath of fresh air and a help along my artistic and philosophical journey 👏👏
My friend Stephen Boydstun comments:
Kurt, I've known happy people, enjoying being alive and loving, but without a thought for finding a purpose in life, indeed, not really getting what that idea is once they had got free of religion. An overall purpose to their conduct or a need to have a large long-time purpose(s) in place for themselves is foreign to them. Foreign, I can tell, just in the way that having a bucket-list for my life is foreign to me. When I wake in the morning I'm in my projects, setting my plans in continuation right from where I left off the day before. And it is enticing, day after day, year after year.
I concur with Rand that people do not automatically desire to live. And I think there is sense to saying that doing one's positive projects and one's enjoyments, and Rand's special-emphasis one also—choosing to think—are occasions of affirming life and in an organic way choosing to live. I suppose I could think of friends who are having a happy life, but no sense of a need for an overall organizing arc or purpose, as really setting continuing to live and have good things in life as their purpose though they don't know it or feel a lack for not knowing it. But that seems presumptuous, and I think it more likely the case, that I just need to question my common models of psychodynamics and models of good sort of human life in some respects (which is not far from Rand's models) in how widely they are the organization of happy people in the world. ln other words, people, good and happy ones, may have some pretty deep differences, even though we are fine and loving with each other.
Lastly, with Rand, I take the existential direct choice to live to be at least always in the background for all human beings. The boy on the bicycle in The Fountainhead is cast as being in an existential episode over continuing life, and I know that comes around in some, perhaps many, real lives.
Kurt, here are my notes as I read your essay:
---
"[W]e are born with certain values, which are experienced as felt needs (desires for food, love, stimulation, mastery of skills etc.). These unchosen needs are the foundation of any healthy value system."
We have unchosen, innate needs for sure, but what's an example of an innate human value?
---
"Our earliest needs or innate values are first experienced from infancy as hungers."
I don’t synonymize needs with human values. Needs are metaphysical—i.e., are the given—while human values are epistemological—i.e., actively identified or passively absorbed from one's environment.
---
"To demand a derivation is pure rationalism, unrelated to human nature […]"
What if that derivation is grounded in sense perception? Wouldn’t that be non-rationalistic?
---
"At some level these are self-evident goods because they make us feel alive, and they make us feel alive because they tend, if pursued, to promote life."
Doesn’t that description of reducing feeling alive to promoting life render those activities as _not_ self-evident goods? In other words, it takes an epistemological act, such as reduction, to evidence the good.
---
"The desire for effectiveness appears to be inborn and appears to be present even in the higher animals."
But aren’t there people who don’t desire for effectiveness? There are plenty of people content to be primarily consumers as opposed to producers.
---
"Why should I choose to live […]"
John Paquette pointed out this error I also committed: “Should” invokes morality, but the choice to live is pre-moral. So instead of asking a moral question about a pre-moral issue, one should ask non-moral questions like those that are metaphysical or epistemological: "'Can I enjoy life? Is living worth the trouble?'" "'Can I get more out of this life than I put into it? Can I benefit from existence? Or is life actually hell? Is this world something I can love, or will I forever hate it? Do I love what life may offer, or do I despise the burdens life puts on me? I never made this world. Do I love it, or do I hate it? Would I enjoy making it better? Or is any such effort an admission of defeat in my battle for the life I wish for? Can I live on earth, or is heaven the only home I will accept without being angry?'"
---
"But that claim is complicated by what seems to be the rationality or at least acceptability of choosing risky occupations such as lumberjacking or dangerous pursuits such as mountain climbing."
I would say that choosing risky occupations is rational if the risk is worth it for its promotion of one's life.
---
"I am suggesting that since existence and identity are corollary concepts, to choose one is to choose the other."
Are you saying that to choose life is to also choose death? Or are you saying that to choose existence is to also choose identity? If the latter, what's the significance of choosing identity?
---
"And the constituent activities of living form the identity of our being. To choose to live = choosing the constituent activities of living. This analysis seems to me to dissolve the dichotomy of survival versus flourishing that has bedeviled discussion of the Objectivist ethics for decades."
Can you elaborate how this "dissolves the dichotomy of survival versus flourishing"? I view flourishing as an instance—a species—of survival, namely that of surviving _well_. Is that still a dichotomy?
---
"The existential choice to live is not the fundamental choice that human beings face. Our fundamental choice is an ongoing journey to lift up our life as felt valuers and incorporate it into a conceptual level of functioning without doing violence to either."
The choice to live is fundamental though because _every_ choice and action implies that choice to live (or not live). This fundamental implication cannot be said about "lift[ing] up our life as felt valuers and incorporate[ing] it into a conceptual level of functioning without doing violence to either."
Thank you, Audrey, for your detailed commentary on my essay. I will have to respond in pieces.
"[W]e are born with certain values, which are experienced as felt needs (desires for food, love, stimulation, mastery of skills etc.). These unchosen needs are the foundation of any healthy value system."
We have unchosen, innate needs for sure, but what's an example of an innate human value?
KK: Food is an innate human value. Every child seeks food, prompted by hunger. Love is an innate human value. Every child seeks love, prompted by loneliness. This pattern continues into adulthood unless we get seriously off-track, usually due to mental illness, such as anorexia or a seriously twisted philosophy such as religious asceticism...
----
"Our earliest needs or innate values are first experienced from infancy as hungers."
I don’t synonymize needs with human values. Needs are metaphysical—i.e., are the given—while human values are epistemological—i.e., actively identified or passively absorbed from one's environment.
KK My point is that little or no initial choice is necessary to transform a need, as experienced as a hunger, into a value. We don't need to think philosophically or even conceptually to want to seek out food. Later on, as we become more fully rational, we need to fit our needs and hungers into something like a philosophical framework, but even then, the source in our basic nature cannot be cut off.
----
"To demand a derivation is pure rationalism, unrelated to human nature […]"
What if that derivation is grounded in sense perception? Wouldn’t that be non-rationalistic?
KK But the sense perception comes first. You are already a valuing being long before you are a philosophizing being. Philosophy recognizes and affirms--it does not derive. This is one of my major points.
----
"At some level these are self-evident goods because they make us feel alive, and they make us feel alive because they tend, if pursued, to promote life."
Doesn’t that description of reducing feeling alive to promoting life render those activities as _not_ self-evident goods? In other words, it takes an epistemological act, such as reduction, to evidence the good.
KK I am not talking about reduction. I am talking about the mechanism. Playing makes us feel good, not because we know it promotes life, but because it promotes life whether we are thinking about it or not. It is the satisfaction of a felt need. This is one of the philosophical bad habits that must be broken to really understand my points: values (which start as inborn) are the foundation of ethics. Something would have to be terribly wrong with a person if he needed to prove that food, love, and the rest have to be reduced to. Philosophy in no way proves that we should pursue certain things, not in a fundamental sense. Philosophy recognizes, affirms, develops, and untangles what was already there. Being philosophical comes logically and developmentally after being a creature with values.
-----
"The desire for effectiveness appears to be inborn and appears to be present even in the higher animals."
But aren’t there people who don’t desire for effectiveness? There are plenty of people content to be primarily consumers as opposed to producers.
KK I am not an expert on child development, but I think it is safe to say that children generally want to see whether they can make a tower of blocks that doesn't fall down. As for adults who don't care about mastery of skills, I think they have gotten off the healthy developmental path and need to retrace their steps. This might require the aid of a therapist.
----
"Why should I choose to live […]"
John Paquette pointed out this error I also committed: “Should” invokes morality, but the choice to live is pre-moral. So instead of asking a moral question about a pre-moral issue, one should ask non-moral questions like those that are metaphysical or epistemological: "'Can I enjoy life? Is living worth the trouble?'" "'Can I get more out of this life than I put into it? Can I benefit from existence? Or is life actually hell? Is this world something I can love, or will I forever hate it? Do I love what life may offer, or do I despise the burdens life puts on me? I never made this world. Do I love it, or do I hate it? Would I enjoy making it better? Or is any such effort an admission of defeat in my battle for the life I wish for? Can I live on earth, or is heaven the only home I will accept without being angry?'
KK Actually, I pretty much agree. What we are talking about is whether I can be happy or not. If I can be, then life is the only logical choice. My point is that happiness results from the satisfaction of one's felt needs in the context of a reasonably rational context. I would regard these needs as unquestionable. We only question them when something has gone wrong with us.
----
"But that claim is complicated by what seems to be the rationality or at least acceptability of choosing risky occupations such as lumberjacking or dangerous pursuits such as mountain climbing."
I would say that choosing risky occupations is rational if the risk is worth it for its promotion of one's life.
KK I agree. The problem is that there are LESS dangerous pursuits that Objectivism would find unacceptable. Danger pe se is not the relevant criterion. Satisfaction of one's felt needs in the context of one's biography and temperament is key.
----
"I am suggesting that since existence and identity are corollary concepts, to choose one is to choose the other."
Are you saying that to choose life is to also choose death? Or are you saying that to choose existence is to also choose identity? If the latter, what's the significance of choosing identity?
KK I really don't where you get the death thing! I am saying that since, as Rand states, Existence is Identity, to choose one is to choose the other. Choosing identity in the case of life is to choose, concretely, all of the activities that constitute living. I would say that these activities are largely grounded in our felt needs, as they mature when we rationally mature.
----
"And the constituent activities of living form the identity of our being. To choose to live = choosing the constituent activities of living. This analysis seems to me to dissolve the dichotomy of survival versus flourishing that has bedeviled discussion of the Objectivist ethics for decades."
Can you elaborate how this "dissolves the dichotomy of survival versus flourishing"? I view flourishing as an instance—a species—of survival, namely that of surviving _well_. Is that still a dichotomy?
KK I don't regard it as a dichotomy, but some Objectivists (e.g. David Kelley) have argued that something is a value only if it contributes to your long-term survival. I think that is intellectually reductionistic and that there are values that do not need to be justified, only conceptualized. That's what I mean by rationalism.
----
"The existential choice to live is not the fundamental choice that human beings face. Our fundamental choice is an ongoing journey to lift up our life as felt valuers and incorporate it into a conceptual level of functioning without doing violence to either."
The choice to live is fundamental though because _every_ choice and action implies that choice to live (or not live). This fundamental implication cannot be said about "lift[ing] up our life as felt valuers and incorporate[ing] it into a conceptual level of functioning without doing violence to either."
KK My very point is that my choice is not to live or die per se. My choice is always to be a better valuer or not, given that values are based on innate needs (as developed along with reason). That means understanding that we need a life-based ethic. But as I keep saying, the purpose of that ethic is to recognize, affirm, develop, and untangle what was already there. Call it a difference of emphasis if you like, but I would say that the perceptual/affective functioning of life has primacy over the conceptual, as important as it is to fit life into a conceptual framework.
“Food is an innate human value. Every child seeks food, prompted by hunger. Love is an innate human value. Every child seeks love, prompted by loneliness.”
Do you believe that humans are born with innate ideas? I don’t think that humans are born with an innate desire for—and thereby identification of—food or love. Food and love are learned and if they are to be values, are relational between valuers and goals. There are even people who, having chosen the goal of asceticism or death, don’t value food or love, corroborating the relational—as opposed to intrinsic—nature of values.
---
Are you implying that the satisfaction of felt needs is the standard by which to identify whether something is a value? If so, I find that problematic: To be a value, (A) that felt need would need to be validated as life promoting (needs, felt or not, can be death promoting) and (B) how that felt need is satisfied, i.e., the means of achieving, would also need to be validated as life promoting. This is true regardless of the age or developmental stage of the individual.
---
“[…] some Objectivists (e.g. David Kelley) have argued that something is a value only if it contributes to your long-term survival.”
How does Rand and Peikoff argue differently?
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I agree that “the perceptual/affective functioning of life has primacy over the conceptual.”
I don't believe that people are born with innate ideas, but I do believe that people are born with innate values, manifested as desires or hungers. Babies don't choose to value food or love: it's built in.
As adults we continue to have these desires. They can be negated by a perverse philosophy, but I would say that they did not arrive at such ideas (as in asceticism) by a purely intellectual process. Such a large deviation from natural values is a sign of mental illness and as such does not count against my claims.
I don't think our basic needs (and hungers) require intellectual validation. At a basic level we don't have to explicitly connect them to their life-promoting potentials. That said, I think that as a person matures in their rationality, they will start making such connections, probably in a haphazard way. That's where philosophy comes in. It "tutors" our desires--helps them find their proper ends, untangles their conflicts, and puts them into a conceptual framework. That's what I mean when I say "the perfection of desire." Reason doesn't in the main *create* desire except in the sense as it corrects mistakes and *affirms* the underlying needs. Our innate values provide the passion that philosophy helps channel.
We are born valuing beings. Philosophy just helps do the job better - more rationally.
I don't know whether Rand and Peikoff agree with Kelley or not. I am pretty sure you can spot someone who disagrees by their use of the word "eudaemonia."
I suspect that our fundamental point of contention is whether values can be innate. I now realize that it's possible—as _implicit_ values—and the rest of your reply logically follows from establishing the existence of innate—implicit—values. Are implicit values what you mean by innate values?
Perhaps the confusion comes from the philosophical term "innate ideas." That's not the only use of the word "innate." It's just Latin for "inborn." That's what I mean. Values such as food, love, and a bit later, stimulation and mastery of skills, are basically inborn. Do you think that would be clearer? It would be easy enough to change.
Yep, "inborn" is what I mean by "innate." Maybe I'm not communicating clearly enough.
I first contested your notion of innate values because I thought that having values involves identification. I now retract my contesting because values can be implicit, and implictness implies the absence of identification.
Thank you, Audrey, for keeping the conversation going. I hope to reply to your reply in the next few days.
This is a great read, Kurt, with so much valuable information included. I haven't spent too much time in philosophical circles- my socializing (whether on social media or in-person) tends to gravitate towards the artistically-minded. I have found that quite a few who deem themselves highly philosophically sound treat their philosophical beliefs as incredibly dogmatic (though they'd never admit this). Whereas, artists I have had conversations with are much more philosophically inquisitive, rather than philosophical dogmatic. I'm curious about your thoughts on this matter. I love the integrative approach of your essay. And I love the literary references too. I think, because you are both very philosophical and very artistic, you integrate well without it stunting creativity, a questioning mind, etc. It's just so strange to me, I'm finding with these "philosophers" I referenced in the beginning of my comment, the more scientific they are, the more dogmatic they are. It's as if they've replaced religion with philosophy and science. I'm rambling now, but I'm curious about your thoughts on the state of philosophy. My experiences with its talking heads have, unfortunately for the most part, been a bit of a lost in translation scenario. It's left much to be desired (if I may offer a small pun involving your title ;)) Loving your substack posts!
Thank you for reading my essay, Rebecca! You are one of what I call my "ideal readers": the people I am most aiming at and whom I think will most understand and benefit from what I have to say.
I have long noticed the dogmatism and rigidity among philosophers, as you mention. This is often (not always) true even of Objectivists. Rand set a bad example, because so much of what she had to say comes off as pronouncements: she seems to have figured that an intelligent reader could verify her statements for himself. So, a lot her fans just ape her words and do not spell out the proofs or meanings of the ideas.
Add to this the general lack of curiosity about the world that many Oists have. Rand has told them all they need to know about all things philosophical and artistic. One thing that makes me different is that I have explored a lot of thinkers on my own, including thinkers that Rand might not have approved of. (Horrors!) Judging by the variety of topics you write about, I would say that you too have a questing spirit, and that is one of the reasons I like you. :-)
I so appreciate your kind words, Kurt! I have to admit you are one of the few philosophers out there who has maintained a high level of curiosity. I can tell by your writing how well-rounded of a thinker you are. The Stoics and Oists in particular appear to be rather... linear?... when I try and engage with them. It's a my way or the highway kind of attitude with quite a few unwritten, insider rules that don't make any sense to me. The philosophical clubs feel rather closed off, and that's in large part due to several of the philosophies' most active voices. Like you, I enjoy reading different perspectives- pair that with a high level of empathy- I think that makes me more artist than "philosopher" 😅 I'm so glad to have your work to read because it has been a breath of fresh air and a help along my artistic and philosophical journey 👏👏