Nope. Ayn Rand concocted an entire philosophy in which everything under the sun always and only came down to either agreeing or not agreeing with her. The bizarre spectacle of a “philosophy of life” dedicated to the individual…but in which each and every individual Objectivist dared not to suggest that she was ever wrong.
Whereas my own understanding of what an objectivist is – here and now – revolves around the assumption that this but my own subjective assessment rooted in dasein.
And that assumption is this: that in regard to moral, political, spiritual, aesthetic etc., value judgments, objectivists will see themselves as in sync with the “real me” able to grasp [philosophically or otherwise] the “right thing to do”.
And, as a consequence of this, they will then proceed to divide up the world into “one of us” [the good guys] and “one of them” [the bad guys].
Nope. KT is truly a rare bird in my book. In many ways we are on the same page here. In regard to such things as religion and objective morality and the “deep state” rooted in political economy. But whether it is stepping on bugs or any other moral and political context in which there are “conflicting goods”, he has thought himself into believing there is this “visceral/intuitive/deep-down-inside-me” Self that is somehow immune to being “fractured and fragmented” in the manner in which I construe my own “self” out in the is/ought world.
But, alas, he now has me on ignore. Maybe even “foed” me. Take it up with him yourself and see what unfolds.
After he got annoyed and I answered his question more completely, I sent him a message inviting him back to the thread. I even told him that I saw his perspective on why he might have thought my questions seemed disingenuous at first, but that I didn’t see the unifying theme to them which he noticed which was that each binary question I was asking in that one post led to the same outcome. To me it just didn’t stand it out. But, he immediately thought it was disingenuous arguing, without doing any probing see if I even saw the same theme he noticed, which I didn’t. Then he just became totally reactionary.
That’s fine if he doesn’t to drop out of the conversation, but what was very uncool was him calling others bad faith actors after exhibiting what I just described. He probably has me on ignore too, which is too bad because at some points he made for a good conversationalist. I’m going to read your thread now.
I think they mostly come in to bolster what they want other people to think (often egotistically around here). They only use some form of partial reasoning to excuse their desire to maintain their own bubble of belief.
Binary thinking is something he comes back to time and again. And that in my view is what the moral and political objectivists fall back on as well. Right or wrong. Good or evil. One of us or one of them.
Only, as I now construe it, he has is own rendition of this. There is what God or, philosophically, the deontologists can tell us about things like the morality of stepping on bugs or pedophilia…and there is what his own “visceral/intuitive/deep-down-inside-me” Self tells him instead. Either/or.
Also the binary thinking he exhibits when others don’t eventually come around to agreeing with him. That “reactionary” persona that really seems to get pissed off at those he decides are fools.
Where would you draw the line between whether it is fine to crush something or not? If a human shrunk to the size of a bug in front of you would you crush it?
Without any further information, there would be no reason to. If it were a tiny alien, I might try to sell access to them. If it were an actual person who somehow became ant-sized, I could think of all sorts of reasons to keep him (or her) trapped within a container and not tell anyone. I would keep them as a personal slave, forcing them to do the unspeakable.
So how exactly would an ant-sized person be useful to you as a slave if they are only the size of a bug? Would you still treat an ant-sized person with the same level of respect you would a human? Or would you treat them like dirt and torment them for your own entertainment? After all, an ant-sized person would be very insignificant compared to you so they wouldn’t be able to do anything about it.
Being small means they could get help clean those hard to reach places. I’m a pretty creative guy and can think of some chores for them to do. There’s earcanal duty, armpit duty, crotch duty, toejam duty…
Would be very unfortunate for a person the size of a bug if they were noticed by you haha. What would a bug-sized person’s daily life become once you had captured them apart from treating you like a God?
[b]What Are The Nuremberg Code’s Ethical Guidelines For Research?
The Nuremberg Code aimed to protect human subjects from enduring the kind of cruelty and exploitation the prisoners endured at concentration camps. The 10 elements of the code are:
Voluntary consent is essential
The results of any experiment must be for the greater good of society
Human experiments should be based on previous animal experimentation
Experiments should be conducted by avoiding physical/mental suffering and injury
No experiments should be conducted if it is believed to cause death/disability
The risks should never exceed the benefits
Adequate facilities should be used to protect subjects
Experiments should be conducted only by qualified scientists
Subjects should be able to end their participation at any time
The scientist in charge must be prepared to terminate the experiment when injury, disability, or death is likely to occur[/b]
Fishing is an interesting question. A lot of people fish recreationally, having no intention to use the fish as a food source. Strangely, the activity is embraced. However, whether intended or not, fish which are caught can get injured and die in the process. Recreational does not mean “not lethal.” I assume everyone who does catch fish with the goal of releasing them is aware of that potential outcome. Yet its entertainment that is even ritualized as a method of “bonding” with others. And these are vertebrate organisms with a developed central nervous system which I must assume experiences pain. But people do this to “pass the time.” To them this activity is a “hobby.”
When I go to raise my shoe over a line of mindless ants during an outdoor lunch, the same guy who may look on with disdain may very well be someone who regularly fishes for sport instead of food. But why? Does it come down to a perceived difference in distress or terror caused between The Attack of the Giant Sneaker versus The Attack of the Giant Hook From Hell? Obviously I’m not a bug or a fish but given the choice, getting one’s face punctured by a hook and dragged 20 yards until its torn out and you can’t breathe seems way crueler than being quickly crushed by some giant white rubber thing.
Other than, of course, those who insist that they do know. Whether stepping on bugs, fishing or doing anything else that involves harming creatures other than ourselves, different individuals make different choices. And different individuals react to those choices differently.
And here I am with my “fractured and fragmented” “I” convinced that 1] individual reactions are rooted subjectively in dasein and 2] philosophers [among others] seem unable, using the tools at their disposal, to determine what all individuals ought to think and feel about human interactions with other animals.
If they wish to be thought of as rational and virtuous human beings.
Only “I” go beyond that and suggest this quandary is true in regard to all contexts in which moral and political value judgments come into conflict.
Again, this thing:
If I am always of the opinion that 1] my own values are rooted in dasein and 2] that there are no objective values “I” can reach, then every time I make one particular moral/political leap, I am admitting that I might have gone in the other direction…or that I might just as well have gone in the other direction. Then “I” begins to fracture and fragment to the point there is nothing able to actually keep it all together. At least not with respect to choosing sides morally and politically.
Then I challenge others [especially the moral and political objectivists] to explain why their own sense of self is not “fractured and fragmented” like mine.
Bugs may be more sentient than we think.
I read a couple articles the other day, one was about how researchers discovered bees recognize each other’s faces and another about how ants become vastly more skilled at traversing terrain the older they get.
Just because they’re small and funny looking, doesn’t mean they’re insentient.
I mean sure, the smaller your brain, the less complicated it could be, but some insects like the eusocial ones (ants, bees, wasps) have a large brain for their size, and a large % of it that isn’t devoted to regulating physiology, sensation and basic instincts could be devoted to consciousness, memory, cognition and emotion, or something like them.
Also, insect physiology may be adept at packing a large number of neurons and subneurons into a small space.
We know so much more about ourselves, pets and cattle than than we do about bugs.
What we don’t know, we tend to oversimplify.
