yeah, but, no. I know what she has to say. I have heard it argued many times. I have read articles about what she had to say. Why do I need to read the whole damn book to disagree? She says that the world is best off when everyone acts in their own self interest, yes?
I would read an essay arguing for her points, maybe a few of them, but the whole book is too much for me.
My philosophy, in essence, is the concept of man as a heroic being, with his own happiness as the moral purpose of his life, with productive achievement as his noblest activity, and reason as his only absolute.
I don't like this at all. Man is, by nature, a political animal, a social animal, and thus a member of society and not solely an individual-- man has never lived as an individual alone, and philosophies based off of this idea are flawed. Rights of individuals are important, because they keep society strong-- but simply claiming that men should pursue their own happiness as the be-all-end-all of moral purpose is too simplistic. There has to be a balance, people. BALANCE. Society requires the efforts of individuals to function well, obviously-- healthy pursuit of self-interest is worthwhile and necessary. But this pursuit alone is not sufficient to sustain human society. We have a responsibility to our communities and the human race as a whole.
Really what I'm basing this off of is what I've read of philosophy (Plato, Locke, Rousseau especially) and adding a little of what I've learned from experience and other stuff (anthropology!) that I've learned. But also the idea of the dual impulses inherent in man, given to us by God, which was explained to me by a Jewish friend has been important to my understanding of human nature. The idea is that there are two impulses. One is the selgiraffe impulse, which is not evil-- it makes us work, it makes us reproduce, and create art, and learn, and build houses, and even eat. This is obviously an important part of human nature and one which leads us to survive and continue the species.
But the species cannot continue without the other impulse, the selfless impulse. The impulse which tells us to do right by our fellow man, and by God. The impulse that makes us feel empathy for others and help them-- not because it makes us happy to see them happy, but because it is the Right thing to do.
The human faculty of happiness is a biologically evolved measuring instrument (a "barometer"[11]) that measures how well one is doing in the pursuit of life. Therefore the standard by which one can judge whether or not some action will lead to greater or lesser happiness is, whether or not it promotes one's life.
This is the flaw in reasoning-- I remember someone on here mentioning that she goes through great gymnastics of reasoning to explain that when one character gives another character a gift, it is because it makes him Happy to see her Happy, and not out of any sense of altruism or selflessness. The issue is, we DO have happiness for a reason-- it tells us that we should keep doing what we're doing (generally). Happiness and other emotions were created by evolutionary pressures which DON'T CARE whether You as an individual live or die-- only whether your genes get passed on. Which is why people sacrifice themselves for family members, children, etc-- it benefits the chances of your genes being carried on.
Maybe I'll read it one day, but I don't have that much interest.
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Topic: Iron Man: 2/3 cool with a scoop of suck. (Read 11741 times)