Actually, from my point of view, the thread should be more about this:
Now on to his OP:
Huh? When we choose particular behaviors [assuming human autonomy] “I” first comes into the world given particular biological imperatives: race, gender, ethnicity, certain character traits, temperament etc… And then all of the arguments that revolve around other possible congenital propensities like sexual orientation. Then the memes – “an element of a culture or system of behavior that may be considered to be passed from one individual to another by nongenetic means, especially imitation” – that are grounded historically, anthropologically, ethnologically, socially, politically, economically, etc., in any number of vast varied human communities. All of which evolve over time in a world bursting with contingency, chance and change.
Three options? How about hundreds and hundreds of them given the manner in which I construe human identity on this thread: ilovephilosophy.com/viewtop … 1&t=176529
Over and over and over again, I make it clear that my own understanding of an objectivist is someone who, in regard to moral or political or esthetic value judgments, is convinced that they are in sync with the Real Me, a Core Self, a Soul. And that this Real Me is, in turn, in sync with the “right thing to do”. Either through God or political ideology or deontology or one or another rendition of Nature.
Then I suggest that intellectual contraptions of this sort…
“Namely, that the source of the objectivist ideas cannot be named because that would mean they are subjective ideas, and not objective truths.”
…be relocated to an actual circumstantial context where behaviors come into conflict existentially over particular conflicting goods.
Which is precisely what I have done on this thread: ilovephilosophy.com/viewtop … 1&t=194382
I explored my political prejudices today revolving around abortion. I did this by noting the experiences I had over the course of my actual lived life intertwined with my experiences in exploring philosophy.
As for genes here, it is obvious that the biological evolution of life on earth has culminated so far in us. A species able to choose either to abort or not to abort. But: is there an understanding of human biology that would enable us to decide whether abortion is inherently moral or immoral? Or is that far more likely to be embodied in the manner in which I construe the “self” here as a subjective/subjunctive existential contraption rooted in dasein?