Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP
Posting-Version: version B 2.10.3 4.3bsd-beta 6/6/85; site l5.uucp
Path: utzoo!lsuc!watmath!clyde!burl!ulysses!mhuxr!mhuxt!houxm!vax135!cornell!uw-beaver!tektronix!hplabs!well!l5!laura
From: laura@l5.uucp (Laura Creighton)
Newsgroups: net.politics.theory
Subject: Re: Ayn  Rand's  definitions of force and reason
Message-ID: <332@l5.uucp>
Date: Fri, 13-Dec-85 17:54:53 EST
Article-I.D.: l5.332
Posted: Fri Dec 13 17:54:53 1985
Date-Received: Thu, 19-Dec-85 17:48:18 EST
References: <1482@hound.UUCP> <1910@psuvax1.UUCP> <309@l5.uucp> <1915@psuvax1.UUCP>
Reply-To: laura@l5.UUCP (Laura Creighton)
Organization: Nebula Consultants in San Francisco
Lines: 51

What i don't understand is why Piotr Berman thinks that feelings and reason
are not related to each other in the form ``your feelings are caused by your
beliefs about reality''.  (I suspect that it us because he has other
beliefs about reality!)  Considering that this is one of the current hot
theories about depression is psychiatry today, I suppose I should not be
surprised.

If my belief is correct then there is no problem whatsoever in deciding
ethics by reason (at least in theory -- at a practical level it is a
tough problem).  When you deal with people who have a commitment to reason,
then through rational argument you will get emotional responses which are
not in conflict with rational belief.  And whenever you do you will
understand that somebody has some examining of their beliefs to do...

Of course, these days it is hard to find that many people who are actually
trying to be rational -- whatever they may say.  Between the Mr. Spock
clones who think that it is rational to have no emotions at all and the
Raving Technophobes who claim that logic gave us the atomic bomb and
therefore should be rejected there is a strong tendancy to view logic
and emotions as independent.  But I think that both views are equally
false, and that the common belief that reason and emotions are opposites
is to blame.

Clearly there are a few principles which one uses in trying to create an
ethic, but I do not believe that they are emotionally based.  For
instance, while the use of force on human beings disgusts me, I do not
believe that the disgust is what lead me to believe that you should not
do this -- rather it is my belief that human beings are valuable which
causes me to be disgusted.  (If I were not disgusted, I would realise that
for all I claim to believe that human beings are valuable, in some
fundamental way I deny this and would try to find and change this problem.)

It is reasonable to ask the question ``why do I think that human beings are
valuable'' but, although I could demark certain qualities which I value
which are posessed by human beings, you could back this up again and ask
and at some point I would say ``because this is self-evident''.  Here is
as good a place to stop for the purpose of argument as any.  Some
philosophers have claimed that all self-evident truths are emotional ones.
I believe that they are way off the mark here.  Self-evident truths are
rational truths, because to deny them is to abandon rationality altogether.

Of course, ti si still possible to argue whether or not something is
self-evident, but I think that if you lose sight of the fact that what
your are arguing about is rational you will end up believing that it is
impossible to be rational at all.


-- 
Laura Creighton		
sun!l5!laura		(that is ell-five, not fifteen)
l5!laura@lll-crg.arpa