Whether morality is primarily about social/interpersonal stuff or about dealing with reality effectively

Max · October 23, 2021, 2:10am

📝 Aside: conversation practice

I’d like to use this as conversation practice. Some things I’m going to try to do (and keep doing consistently) is to write a focused reply to one thing. I’ll also keep questions focused and to a minimum so we can go deep rather than going wide. I might note other topics/things as we go so that we can come back to them later. IDK if it’s possible to have like a wiki-post where we could both keep conversation-tree type metadata. I guess you’re a mod so I can make a reply mb and we can both edit that post as required? I’ll do that after this reply so we can use it if we want. We could also keep separate ones.

How do you see the AR quote as related to mine? It’s not obvious to me what you’re trying to point out. I have some ideas, but they’re guesses.

My main guess is that you think there’s a conflict between “social” and “interpersonal” – is that right?

I thought it’d be good to try to interpret the Galt quote.

The title and ~subtitle of this section of FTNI is:

“THIS IS JOHN GALT SPEAKING”

This is the philosophy of Objectivism.

A few paragraphs before the main quote, Galt says (this seems notable):

“A rational process is a moral process. […]

Here’s the main quote, with some paragraphs from above/below the main paragraph too. (I haven’t read AS or FTNI, so it was useful for me to get some context.)

“This, in every hour and every issue, is your basic moral choice: thinking or non-thinking, existence or non-existence, A or non-A, entity or zero.

“To the extent to which a man is rational, life is the premise directing his actions. To the extent to which he is irrational, the premise directing his actions is death.

“You who prattle that morality is social and that man would need no morality on a desert island—it is on a desert island that he would need it most. Let him try to claim, when there are no victims to pay for it, that a rock is a house, that sand is clothing, that food will drop into his mouth without cause or effort, that he will collect a harvest tomorrow by devouring his stock seed today—and reality will wipe him out, as he deserves; reality will show him that life is a value to be bought and that thinking is the only coin noble enough to buy it.

“If I were to speak your kind of language, I would say that man’s only moral commandment is: Thou shalt think. But a ‘moral commandment’ is a contradiction in terms. The moral is the chosen, not the forced; the understood, not the obeyed. The moral is the rational, and reason accepts no commandments.

It seems like the connection between rationality and morality (and the choice to pursue reason/truth) is the main topic of these paragraphs.

For the original AR quote, here’s my take on it:

Galt is addressing listeners/readers who think that both:
1. morality is social
  - My guess is that this is directly related to AR’s criticisms of ideas like man has an obligation to live for others, rather than himself
    - “morality is social” is referring to these ideas (which AR/objectivism disagrees with)
2. a person^[1], in isolation / a vacuum, has no need of morality
  - a desert island is often a metaphor for extreme isolation, or a situation where there’s no connection to civilization / other people. That’s how it reads to me atm.
Galt is saying that this is a time where morality is exceptionally important
- this meaning being on a desert island (in isolation / a vacuum)
  - i.e., there’s no social factors – but morality is still important
the next sentence (which is the rest of the para) answers the question why is morality important in this case?
- my outline of the answer: [if he claims] ([without society/victims to make the claims true]) […examples of irrational claims…] [then he’ll die] [because thinking/rationality is necessary to live and stay living].
  - I agree with this (both in isolation, and in answer to the above question)
  - I’d still agree with this without the “when there are no victims to pay for it” bit.
    - I read it as like a necessary parenthetical, but WRT Galt’s ideas themselves, I think the conclusion still makes sense without it.

Do you see any problems with my understanding of the quote? It’s not obvious to me that there’s a conflict between my take and my quote.

Note for future

One thing I did notice, a few paragraphs earlier Galt says:

[…] but if devotion to truth is the hallmark of morality, then there is no greater, nobler, more heroic form of devotion than the act of a man who assumes the responsibility of thinking.

I think it’s implied that Galt thinks “devotion to truth is the hallmark of morality”. It’s not obvious that there’s convergence between this idea and my quote, so maybe there’s a conflict.

Mb useful questions for context / bg

Some closed question that might be useful for us to both answer upfront (to figure out points that we might disagree on).
Note: I’m conscious this is going broad (in some sense) early in the conversation. I don’t think it’d be good to focus on any disagreements that come up with these right now (not without good reason), but they might be good context for us re: each-other’s ideas. Also, to avoid going deep, they’re all closed (yes/no) questions.

Do you think your future self is a different person to your current self? (my answer: yes)
- If so, does “interpersonal harm” include harm to your future self? (my answer: yes)

WRT my quote:

Morality is about interpersonal harm, and people are free to live their own lives (wrt themselves) how they wish.

If “interpersonal” was removed, would you still disagree with that?
- (my answer: yes; i.e. I agree with “Morality is about harm”)
Do you agree with the second clause: “… people are free to live their own lives (wrt themselves) how they wish.”?
- (my answer: yes)

I read the way Galt says “man” as collectively referring to ~civilization, but the example (on a desert island) seems to be talking about a single person – that’s why I say “a person” specifically. If there were more than 1 person, then there would be some social/interpersonal stuff, which would defeat the purpose of the example. ↩︎