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Post 0

Friday, September 23 - 10:53pm

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Don Watkins has shut down his blog and now is blogging on NoodleFood, Diana Hsieh's blog (he is the third blogger there, with Diana and Paul Hsieh.)

Post 1

Saturday, September 24 - 2:35am

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Young people trying to learn a philosophy are already prone to intrinsicism, simply because they are overwhelmed by how abstract it is.

And this is because reason is not taught, but absorbed, thus making for a haphazard approach [the fallacy of 'common sense'], and one in which there is not really an understanding of its importance to the flourishing of being human.

Post 2

Saturday, September 24 - 7:46am

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Don Watkins wrote:

An Objectivist [...] knows that the more clearly he identifies the reasons behind his desires, the more intense his desires will be; the more vividly he'll experience his values; and the more delight he'll feel from their contemplation, pursuit, and achievement.

I would caveat this with the statement that the desires may remain but the target of those desires may change as the Objectivist clarifies to himself the reasons for his desires. For instance, many of us have met persons we thought might make excellent lovers, but in the end, we learn of certain vices like compulsive lying that give us cause to terminate all relations with them. These characters gave an appearance of certain loveable qualities, and we can understand ourselves well enough to know why we find them loveable. But as we peel back the layers of appearances to discover the core being of the target, we may find loathable qualities as well.

The good news is that this interactive process of self-discovery clarifies to the Objectivist what he seeks in the core character of an ideal partner. Attempting to get that search "right the first time" constitutes an unreasonable demand.

I gather from the tone of the article that Don might agree with this caveat, but he did not say so explicitly in his article.

Post 3

Sunday, September 25 - 7:22am

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To value something is to see that thing as contributing to one's welfare.

Close but no cigar. Espistomologically sloppy. This could be said of a pragmatist.

Post 4

Sunday, September 25 - 2:43pm

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"Never fail to pass moral judgment." That is the way to live a rational life in an irrational world. Who said that the world is irrational? Is gravity irrational? Well, no, but people are... Well, no, some persons are. That is not "people."

Never fail to pass moral judgment. Why did Rand not say, "Never fail to ask yourself how you feel."

I believe that Rand consciously subscribed to intrinicism and that she purposely cultivated intricism in her admirers.

According to my understanding of Objectivism, if you like something that is evil, then you are evil. It is better to decide via some objective methodology what is good and then go for that. Yet, we have now, forty years later, this insightful statement that people who pass objective moral judgments independent of their feelings do not really understand Objectivism.

Furthermore, I believe that denuniciations of intrinsicism are intrinsicist -- otherwise, it could not always be wrong.