From: hugh@mks.com (Hugh Brown)
Subject: Re: Letting Someone Drown 
Summary: Start in epistemology
Organization: Mortice Kern Systems Inc., Waterloo, Ontario, CANADA
Date: Fri, 22 Jan 1993 22:43:24 GMT


Most often when two people have a disagreement in philosophy, and especially
so when the disputed philosophy is Objectivism, the disagreement almost never
concerns the putative topic at hand. Debates about Objectivist politics
usually have their roots in ethics or earlier, disputes in ethics are
centered in epistemology, and epistemological differences are traceable to
metaphysics. Usually, I say: not always, but usually.

The most recent thread about whether Objectivism mandates a certain ethical
position on the rescue of people in peril is a case in point. Various
situations were put forward: whether one must saving drowning people, one's
responsibilities in preserving people who wander into the path of your car,
whether people who die while saving imperilled snowmobilers are acting
morally.

These are admittedly marginal issues, but those who presented the case for
saving unfortunates worked hard to show that Objectivism amounts to one of two
things.  On the one hand, they would be satisfied to show that Objectivism is
a shallow relativism that amounts to vacuous subjectivism:  that Objectivism
morality is whatever an Objectivist feels it should be. They would also be
satisfied to show that it is dogmatic and inflexible, that it asserts that
there is a single answer for all men, at all times. They will accept that
morality is divorced from reality and is subjective, or they will accept that
ethics is separate from consciousness and intrinsic. What they will not
accept is that ethics can be objective: that "the good is neither an
attribute of 'things in themselves' nor of man's emotional states but an
evaluation of the facts of reality by man's consciousness according to a
rational standard of value."

The Objectivist literature is replete with examples and elaborations on the
relationship of one's mind and reality, how that is related to knowledge in
all areas of human action (ethics included), what role consciousness plays,
what reality has to do with it, why man's nature is important.  In all these
cases, though, ethics is but one important, specialized branch of knowledge.
Acceptance of this epistemology is presupposed in the explanation of the
ethics, and rejection of it understandably leads to the rejection of
conclusions in ethics.  So I find it significant that the dismissal of
Objectivist ethics in the questions posed in this news group are linked to
the epistemological categories of intrinsicism and subjectivism.

The ethical question is not central to the debate. Resolution of this
question could not be satisfactorily achieved without gaining agreement on
Objectivist epistemology, knowledge, rationality, and objectivity. It is
pointless to continue any discussion of the moral questions unless a
corresponding effort is made to address the logically prior question. Those
who wish clarification of the Objectivist ethics could first make clear
either their acceptance or rejection of the Objectivist epistemological
concepts and proceed from there. I think this would be far more illuminating
than the continuing debate on an issue that cannot be resolved without some
preceding agreement.

Hugh
-- 
hugh@mks.com

Mortice Kern Systems
35 King Street North
Newsgroups: alt.philosophy.objectivism