SPECIFIC MORAL PRINCIPLES
Contents:
A moral principle is not a concrete-bound rule but an induction of a vast range of more specific generalisations, with its scope being your life as a whole. In other words, it is both a description and a prescription of the right action in the broadest context available to you, which is your life.
The principles given below are, in essence, derivations of the key metaphysical and epistemological principles, applied to the context of living a human life. Hence, you may often find that the same basic principle is used but in different perspectives, each on its own forming a principle for life.
A human’s own conscious, volitional existence is his only objective source and standard of value.
To exist or not is the basic, irreducible choice presented to us by reality. Any action serves either to further life or to subvert it on some level; there are no in-betweens that are desirable if life is the standard, just as there are no toxins that are desirable if health is the standard.
The proper goal of the process of life is life itself. The proper goal of a volitional consciousness, which has only one basic choice, i.e. to live or not, is its own life.
Expansion:
In other words, the purpose of your life is to live. But what it means to “live” depends on what sort of entity you are. As a conscious, volitional being, the only proper standard to guide its course of action is its own life; its death holds no meaning for it and approaching it in any way is a meaningless pursuit (no matter the purported goals). For a volitional being capable of conceiving the long-range, life is the standard to guide its course of action in terms of both the actual and the potential.
To your own existence, your non-existence is simply a non-value, i.e. it is not something that must be held as a standard for action.
Expansion:
The fact of your non-existence can be of no concern to you because non-existence erases you and your very experience of existence itself. If your life is the standard of value, wherein life is defined with respect to your identity as a conscious, self-determined, self-motivated entity, then to you, life is the goal underlying every goal and death by itself is not a consideration. This means that you must aim to live to your best capacity and strive to expand your capacity to live by your best rational judgement, rather than aim to avoid death (fundamentally).
Choose your values rationally, with respect to the greatest long-range pursuit of life, and pursue them according to your best judgement in the pursuit not of avoiding failure but of achieving success (fundamentally). i.e. Survive not to avoid death but to live fully (fundamentally).
Expansion:
In essence, evaluating a risky path involves considering your whole, integrated hierarchy of values and comparing alternative paths, other potential values and what option most serves to expand your capacity to live. Note that when I speak of alternative paths, I also refer to paths involving the acquisition of more knowledge, ability or confidence in the pursuit of the same goal(s).
In principle, choose your values rationally, with respect to the greatest long-range pursuit of life, and pursue them according to your best judgement in the pursuit not of avoiding failure but of achieving success. In other words, survive not to avoid death but to live fully. Death as such is meaningless to someone concerned with living, while life lived to the fullest is all that matters.
What does a life lived to the fullest mean? It means a life able to sustain and advance itself on every level, from physical to intellectual to psychological. Ethics hence becomes the study of self-preservation with respect to what it means to live as a human, and what it means to live long-range as a deliberate goal rather than an accidental fortune.
Why have such an approach? Based on a basic understanding of the nature of our existence, our survival depends on reason and egoism, both in the deepest, most fundamental sense; reason—to know reality, and egoism—to value, act and fight for our own lives in reality. The way to push back the boundaries of danger, especially long-range, is to face the danger with reason, self-esteem and courage, to face reality and not cower from it. To face risks rationally in pursuit of a higher value instead of taking a less risky option and settling for lesser values is to value one’s own existence in the fullest, most long-range way possible, i.e. with respect to both the actual and the potential.
To summarise, keeping the sustenance of life as the standard of value is logically—and thus, ethically—equivalent to the pursuit of life to one’s fullest capacity long-range. What is important to such a pursuit of life is both the actual and the potential.
A volitional consciousness has, by its nature, no fundamentally automatic conscious values; even its conscious value for its own life is not automatic.
Expansion:
To sustain your life as your ultimate goal, i.e. to pursue the standard of value that is life, your life needs to be worth sustaining. “Worth” refers to one’s capacity with respect to the actual and the potential, because to a human, “life” is an integration of the past, present and future. Now, to know the actual and the potential, especially the potential, is not always an easy task. However, we can grasp our capacity to deal with life by observing the internalised moral code expressed in our actions and judge this moral code with respect to (1) what is fundamental to our life as a whole, and (2) what is possible in life as a whole. In this way, we can judge both our capacity and the limits to our capacity. As long as our capacity and its limits (as far as we know) promote our life and do not subvert it fundamentally (i.e. with respect to the fundamental requirements of life as human beings), the value for life implies its sustenance.
It is not merely the avoidance of the bad or the partial pursuit of the good but rather the full pursuit of the good that is moral.
Expansion:
Morality defines values and the principles required to achieve them, with the standard of value being one’s own life. Hence, morality must be defined not in terms of the avoidance of negatives, i.e. the avoidance of anti-values, but in terms of the achievement of positives, i.e. the achievement of values. This is not to say that negatives are permissible; on the contrary, a negative serves to undermine one or more values and thus undermine the whole integrated system of values. But even to undermine values, you must have them in the first place, which is why morality at its core must be defined in terms of the achievement of positives.
Not avoiding the bad undermines the pursuit of values, and the partial pursuit of the good ignores or rejects some values, thereby also undermining the pursuit of values. You are not moral for (1) merely not committing an act of evil, or (2) pursuing a value or values in a way that does not pursue the greatest achievement of your integrated system of values to the best of your knowledge or capacity. To emphasise the second point, to pursue your values partially with respect to your knowledge and capacity is immoral (though more moral than pursuing evil). The implication is that not pursuing a value within your knowledge and capacity is immoral, given that your standard of value is life as a conscious, volitional being.
Being perfectly moral is your only path to your values—including life—and your happiness.
NOTE: This principle takes the previous one to its logical conclusion.
Most of the following is lifted from “Moral perfection” from Pride and Moral Perfection from Philosophy in Practice.
First, some definitions…
Perfection:
The full, consistent achievement of a standard, as defined in a certain context. Note that a standard defined out of context is not meant to be effective or even possible; it can be effective or possible only by accident. Note, hence, that perfection is contextual, with its only proper benchmark being reality as we know it and not fantasy.
Moral perfection:
The full, consistent achievement of one’s values in the context of one’s life and capacity to live, which includes one’s situation and potential. The standard of moral perfection must be rational, i.e. with regards to what is possible and valuable in the context of one’s life.
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Back to the discussion…
Moral perfection is not:
NOTE 1: Moral fallibility simply means the ability to fail to make a moral choice. But moral failure is immoral by its nature. Hence, note that moral perfection does not mean you are unable to make an immoral choice — you are always able — but while moral perfection cannot coexist with moral failure, it can and does coexist with the ability for moral failure. This means, essentially, that volition is always operative in morality.
NOTE 2: Not all failure is moral failure, and failure by itself may have no bearing on morality!
Moral perfection is:
Expansion:
Morality is grounded in reason, with its standard being human life. In this light, to be moral is to be perfectly moral, since any deliberate imperfection is a deliberate deviation from reason. When you allow yourself to deviate from reason deliberately, you no longer operate with reason as the absolute, because by what standard would you now choose to be rational? If you were rational, to be rational or not is not a valid choice; rationality is the only valid option. Hence, when you allow yourself to deviate from reason deliberately, you adopt an irrational approach to life, either implicitly or explicitly. In such a case, even when you choose to be rational, it would be because you feel like it, not because reason is your standard of truth. Whatever is anti-reason is anti-mind and thus, anti-life and immoral.
“The perfect person does not demand of himself the impossible, but he does demand of himself every ounce of the possible.” — Leonard Peikoff
“Moral perfection is not about genuflecting to some deity or to pursue morality as an end in itself. It’s not about keeping a good record in some official bookkeeping. Being perfectly moral is the only path to your values and your happiness.” — Tara Smith
Expansion:
The records of your past serve as a reference, either for observations, lessons or facts that impact the present or would impact the future. These records are not for the purpose of flaunting—to yourself or to others. Self-esteem is the value you place on yourself as you live; it depends on your consistent, continuous efforts and sustained progress, not on your past achievements as such.
Your character is like your life, in that it is not a static object but a dynamic process. The value past achievements have is the value they carry forward — in some way or the other — but not in and of themselves as trophies. Moral perfection is not about maintaining a record of goodness, but about maintaining your life to the fullest extent possible to you, and about maintaining the character that makes it possible.
Justifying your actions after the fact is meaningless if you had no rational justification before or while doing it—this would be rationalisation. The only use of reflecting on your actions is to learn from the bad and appreciate the good.
Expansion:
Rationalisation is the subversion of reason that uses a façade of apparent rationality. Here, you attempt to justify your actions after the fact, rather than validate them before enacting them (validation can be in various forms depending on the context and constraints: logical inference, knowledge, well-founded instinct or intuition, need of the moment, etc.). In a sense, rationalisation gives you the leeway for impulsive, compulsive or other kinds of irrational behaviour.
Hence, to indulge in rationalisation is to enable yourself to evade and lie to yourself, thereby distorting your perception of reality and cutting you off from achieving actual values in your character and life. Note again that moral perfection is not about maintaining a record, but about living your life to your best capacity. Rationalisation, as well as evasion and self-dishonesty in general, do not achieve either; neither a true moral record (in fact, by distorting reality, they prevent you from properly maintaining your morality) nor the capacity to live your life to the fullest.
This whole section is a specific, crucial application of “1+2.1. On efficacy of thought and action”.
Just as there can be no knowledge beyond one’s grasp of reality, there can be no value beyond one’s grasp of reality.
“Grasp of reality” includes:
Expansion:
(1) No value should be pursued in isolation without considering the full context of all the values integrated to it. (2) No value can be gained by sacrificing more fundamental values, because the more fundamental values are what make it a value in the first place. (3) No value that can be pursued rationally must fail to be pursued. (4) To be moral is to be consistent without even a single deliberate exception. To allow contradictions in a rational morality is to undermine rationality itself, thereby undermining the whole moral structure.
Important note:
In my experience and understanding, your responses (emotional and physical) to values can be rational and a part of an integrated whole, or they can be irrational, disconnected and disoriented. The purpose of morality is to integrate all values on every level (from the physical, perceptual level to the abstract, conceptual level) to the purpose of living your life to the fullest. When this integration is done well enough, everything from sensual pleasure to high-level intellectual and material pursuits adds to your life and is never empty, i.e. never meaningless. Even sensual pleasure, which many regard as fleeting and pointless, becomes a means to enhance your life as a whole in a long-lasting, impactful manner, due to the integrated nature of your values. On the flip side, if sensual pleasure — or any value for that matter — is pursued irrationally, i.e. without relation to rational values, then it tends to become ineffectual or even counterproductive in its effect on your life beyond the brief momentary experience (which is of no value to you in isolation); in such a case, it could serve to enhance your life only by accident.
Like knowledge, values are contextual, both with respect to each other and with respect to one’s grasp of reality.
Expansion:
To pursue a value out of context is to neglect or evade the values existing in narrower and broader contexts. Hence, to pursue a value in context: (1) Understand how it integrates with the broader context and thus, whether and why you should pursue it. (2) Understand what values exist in the narrower contexts in which you find yourself. For example, if you pursue a long-range goal while ignoring the momentary and short-term values, you are neglecting or evading the narrower context which you are in, i.e. the present moment, which is a part of the larger context in which you are pursuing your goal.
Important note 1:
This note is a reiteration of previous points. Your values are an integrated system, with each part necessary on some level both within its context and in a broader context. For example, enjoying the moment is as crucial to life as the pursuit of long-range goals; one fuels, promotes and concretises the other, while the other sustains, enhances and expands the one. To value life as an end in itself requires the achievement of values in every context that you find your life in; immediate, short-range, or long-range. This approach is not just “preferred” but necessary and the only right approach with respect to the standard of value that is one’s own conscious, volitional existence.
Important note 2:
When you have to choose between potential values, use your hierarchy of values in a sufficiently large, i.e. inclusive context.
Drawing from “The basis of motivation and willpower” from Integrating the Actual and the Potential from Philosophy in Practice.
Motivation and willpower are not unlimited, and they are not guided primarily by your whims and wishes; they are resources that can deplete, must be maintained (or renewed), and can be expanded by gaining values and virtues, and by reaping the reward of your actions.
Expansion:
In this regard, the immediate-to-short-term is as vital as the long-term; none should be sacrificed for the other.
Motivation and willpower are not fundamentally gifts of fortune; they are resources that are, at least to some extent, in one’s own control to use, sustain, understand and expand.
Expansion:
It is a mistake to wait for motivation to “strike” you, or to think willpower is a “god-given” characteristic. Their roots are primarily (though not solely) in your premises and the state of your mind. They depend on your proper focus and effort in shaping your character.
Important note:
The physical is as important to consider as the intellectual and psychological, because willpower and motivation are, in essence, the energy to pursue a goal, and such energy is also (though not only) rooted in your physical state.
A principle is properly applied only by working out the concrete instance of the relevant causal chain in the given situation.
i.e.
A principle is properly applied only by grasping how the relevant causal chain manifests itself concretely in the particular context.
Expansion:
To understand the nature of a situation is to understand—on some level—how it is an instance of a broader integration. Understanding a situation like this enables you to accept what must be accepted—according to your rational goals and expectations—and know what must not be accepted.
One’s own causal efficacy in a given context determines the right evaluation of one’s achievement as well as the right course of action.
i.e.
Part of embracing the law of causality is embracing—and recognising the rationally determined extent of—one’s own causal agency.
“In psychological terms, the issue of man’s survival does not confront his consciousness as an issue of life or death, but as an issue of happiness or suffering.” — Ayn Rand
i.e.
Happiness is the sign of a successful state of life, suffering is the warning signal of failure or death.
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(Credits to: Jean Moroney)
Suffering needs to be overcome. It is a warning signal, you are at risk, and part of the risk is your risk of entering a vicious cycle. If you feel despair or self-doubt, you literally temporarily lack the motivation to pursue your goal. If you do not actively intervene, the default on your part magnifies the problem—thus creating a vicious cycle. Without your intervention, suffering fuels greater suffering—it is not a stable situation. Furthermore, as you let suffering fuel suffering, it would take an ever greater effort to stop the vicious cycle.
In terms of degrees of vitality, we can establish the following chain:
Suffering-Serenity-Contentment-Happiness
The key to survival, as grasped in psychological terms, is to have better control over moving up the chain to happiness.
The key to having better control over moving up the chain to happiness is to learn to identify and return to a baseline level of vitality at will.
Identify and work on the biggest obstacle to your vitality and happiness that is possible for you to work on.
It is always logically possible to move from suffering to serenity; the key is to accept the facts and understand that reality is logical, and thus, open to reason, and thus, open to one’s own causal efficacy on some level.
Expansion:
Serenity is not the goal, happiness is. But serenity is a non-suffering, practical baseline on which you can learn to establish happiness. As the basic intervention to your suffering, it is important to move from suffering to serenity. Note that serenity is consistent with sadness, but it is not in the same category as suffering.
Important note:
Accepting the facts involves accepting your emotions about the facts, no matter how undesirable—such as guilt, self-doubt, anxiety, despair, etc. Emotions provide a vital starting point in understanding your suffering, and sometimes, they may even be unfounded in reality, i.e. the suffering may not even have a valid basis. If they are founded in reality, they offer you a vital connection to reality, a means to learn the facts and deal with them.
“To fear to face an issue is to believe the worst is true.” — Ayn Rand
Pursuit of the positive and not merely the avoidance of the negative is what leads to happiness.
i.e.
Happiness is the result of one’s actions to gain values, not of one’s actions to avoid threats.
Important note:
The pursuit of the positive must be doable, i.e. something you can do and more or less reliably reap the reward of. If needed, start incrementally in order to build your motivation in a logical progression. Happiness is not a matter of sheer will; it is the result of the non-contradictory achievement of values, according to the proper context.
Try to regain the lost value if possible; if it is not possible, serenity can be achieved by fully accepting the loss of the value—this is mourning.
Expansion:
Contemplating the loss of a value is vital in gaining clarity of the value and its role in your integrated hierarchy of values. This can:
Do not be afraid of being sad; this is progress, compared to suffering.
Reason is one’s only means to knowledge and the only valid guide to action in the long-run.
Expansion:
A human must live by his own rational perception of reality. He cannot act against it or escape it or find a substitute for it, and there is no other way for him to live. It is the only valid guide to action in the long-run because it is the means of validation itself.
NOTE: “Long-run” does not mean you say, “It is coming in the future, so I can forget about it now,” but rather, “It is coming in the future, so I must integrate it to the here and now.”
“Focus is the state of a goal-directed mind committed to achieving full awareness.” — Leonard Peikoff
Expansion:
The choice to focus is the fundamental choice to be a rational agent. It is not primarily a matter of exerting mental effort, but rather, of choosing the direction of attention; it is your commitment to some but any purpose, with the necessary awareness of reality.
Evasion destroys one’s ability to reason and thus act rationally.
NOTE: rational action = deliberately effective action
First, a definition…
Evasion:
The active refusal to focus one’s mind to the considerations relevant to one’s pursuit of values. I do not mean putting aside relevant thoughts to revisit them at a later point, but the deliberate avoidance of thinking in order to reach an active, permanent state of ignorance; not blindness, but the refusal to see. Note that the decision to delay thinking must itself be rational (and not arbitrary or whimsical) with respect to your context. Look at “1+2.1. On efficacy of thought and action” for a better understanding of how relevance is identified.
Note also that by drifting, I do not mean the temporary relaxation of one’s consciousness for more perceptual or sensory enjoyment or rest, but keeping one’s mind unfocused even in one’s active hours; not rest, but the avoidance of mental engagement as a practice. Unlike evasion, drifting is not an active process but a passive state of avoidance. However, evasion eventually arises from drifting, because drifting eventually amounts to the evasion of the necessity to focus one’s mind.
Expansion:
NOTE: In certain cases, knowledge you have may not be accessible due to lack of information, stress, distress, errors, etc.
Evasion, i.e. refusing to think is the starting point of evil, since evil stems from the rejection of reality on some level. Drifting, i.e. unfocusing one’s mind is the evasion of the necessity to focus one’s mind. Note, crucially, that permitting even a single evasion, i.e. rejecting reason for even a single issue (reason as applicable within the real constraints of your capacity, knowledge and hierarchy of values) is the rejection of reason as an absolute and life as the standard. By permitting even a single evasion, you accept irrationality as your fundamental means of thought and action and you accept the anti-life as your fundamental guide to action. By doing so, you are turning a blind eye to the germ of your own potential destruction.
What evasion and drifting are not:
To evade is to knowingly neglect or reject a fact that is, in your knowledge, relevant to your purpose. In this light, the following do not count as evasion:
To deal with reality means never to fake it or evade it in one’s own mind.
i.e.
Never fake nor omit the truth from one’s own mind.
NOTE: This is an extension of the principle of non-evasion.
Expansion:
The essence of self-honesty is holding reason as an absolute both in terms of knowledge and values. The essence of honesty in general is the same, but its application is not. The principle of non-evasion implies that one must always, without exception, be honest with oneself, not just not lying but also not omitting the truth from oneself. However, in relation to other people, the principle of non-evasion implies something more generalised: one must always, without exception, never contradict (through faking or omission to oneself) one’s sum of knowledge and one’s hierarchy of values.
You cannot gain a value by sacrificing more fundamental values, because it is the more fundamental values that make it a value in the first place. For instance, you cannot gain wealth through the violation of property, you cannot gain productive values through fraud, you cannot gain love through pretension, etc. In the same vein, lying to others, in general, is to sacrifice a higher value, such as reason (i.e. how you deal with reality), productive purpose (i.e. how you create value for your life), self-esteem (i.e. how you value your own conscious existence), for a lower one, such as comfort, material gain, pleasure, etc. Note that, due to sacrificing the more fundamental values, you are making what you gained meaningless (i.e. making them non-values or anti-values), both in the short-range and especially in the long-range.
The reasons you could lose more fundamental values by lying to others are: (1) You are compelled to rely on people’s delusion or evasion rather than their perceptiveness and rationality. (2) Reality is interconnected, and thus, faking a part of it often extends beyond one lie or omission, and may extend to such an extent that it undermines your ability to gain and/or keep values (such as reason, self-esteem, clarity of thought, etc.), and function (on your own or with respect to other people). In other words, lies by their nature cannot be contained indefinitely. (3) It becomes much easier to lie to yourself, especially if you lie about your personal qualities, abilities, etc., because reality becomes the antagonist of the self-image you are trying to create and evasion becomes more appealing.
In general, honesty with others is the preferred policy. Because our judgement depends on the context of our knowledge, and because our knowledge may be too limited to grasp clear consequences on a deeper level, when in doubt, and when there is not enough time or resources to clear that doubt, be honest, because it is a policy that, in general, respects reason, reality and self-esteem, both yours and others’.
However, lying to others is not universally wrong. Again, it boils down to the question: are you trying to gain a value by sacrificing more fundamental values? For example, it would be right to lie to someone threatening you or your loved one, or (maybe) in order to survive in a corrupt order, etc. However, you must always hold your actions to the highest rational scrutiny you are capable of, in the context of the whole sum of your knowledge. Furthermore, it is in the pursuit of the principle of non-evasion that you must strive to expand your knowledge, through attention to experiences, reflection, etc.
NOTE: As with any principle mentioned here, your rational self-interest (in the broadest context available to you) is the standard of value and judgement of right and wrong.
Clarity and efficacy of focus requires that one actively seek out an understanding of what the causal factors and their ramifications are in a given situation.
Expansion:
Causality is a key part of what integrates reality, thus grasping it is a key part of integrating your knowledge of reality and thus gaining understanding (i.e. knowledge of wider truth and greater efficacy).
One’s own causal efficacy is always one of the most relevant and important factors to understand.
The mind has identity, and can only function according to that identity; trying to operate one’s mind outside its range leads to cognitive failure.
Expansion:
If you want to use your mind properly, i.e. to use it rationally and be rational, you must use it according to its capacity and capability. This means saying “no” to mental overload whenever you recognise it; when overloaded, it is always possible and practical to reduce the load. There are many ways to achieve this, such as:
All knowledge is contextual and hierarchical.
To grasp essentials (causes, fundamentals, roots, origins) of things in reality requires a process of abstraction.
Expansion:
This is directly derivable from the nature of the process of identifying essentials (discussed later). Metaphysically, every feature of a thing constitutes its being. For this reason, perception alone does not reveal the essence of a thing, since a thing is metaphysically an inseparable whole and we perceive it as such. Hence, to understand what constitutes the basis of its existence, i.e. the causes, foundational features, etc., requires a process of selective focus, i.e. abstraction.
Consciousness has identity and is finite in scope and capacity.
Unit reduction expands the scope of one’s consciousness.
Expansion:
Unit reduction is the process of reducing the number of mental units held in one’s mind while retaining the whole relevant context of information; this may involve omitting many non-essential details. This process involves:
Differentiation, i.e. obtaining the distinguishing features of the objects of study by identifying mutual similarities and differences. Integration, i.e. obtaining the features that form the basis/cause/foundation of the largest number of other features (thereby uniting a range of existents). Detail omission, i.e. omitting irrelevant details and overly-detailed considerations.
All of the above processes are the bases of perception, unit-perception, concept-formation, etc., i.e. any mental content that organises the material provided by the senses according to observed features. Also note that both of the first two processes happen together; integration requires a discriminated, i.e. differentiated perception, and differentiation is furthered by integrating distinguishing characteristics, hence allowing comparisons of a wider range of facts and cases using fewer mental units.
Thinking in essentials is the indispensable process of programming the subconscious mind for the instantaneous recall of everything one knows about a subject.
(This object may be a unit, an entity, a process, etc.)
First, a definition…
Essential:
That which constitutes the being of an object of study in the relevant cognitive context. It is an epistemological and not a metaphysical term that is defined based on the relevant context (metaphysically, every feature (attribute or component) of an object constitutes its being). Note, again, that what is essential in a more specific context may not be necessary and rational to consider as essential in a broader context. For example, the definition of “human” in a philosophical context requires a broader kind of focus on a human’s characteristics compared to a biological or psychological context.
Back to the discussion…
Expansion:
Unit-reduction, which is the combined process of differentiation and integration used to reduce the mental units required to hold a context in focus, has one crucial method: thinking in essentials. The essentials of an object of study are those features that constitute the being of the object in the relevant cognitive context.
Essentials include and imply at least the necessary conditions for the being and behaviour of the object (but not necessarily also the sufficient conditions; for example, capacity for reason is essential to language such that it is necessary but not sufficient to enable language). This is because essentials are obtained by discarding the non-distinctive characteristics and integrating the distinctive (i.e. distinguishing) ones by identifying their first causes.
Important note 1:
Thinking in essentials is the indispensable process of programming the subconscious mind for the instantaneous recall of everything one knows about a subject. This is because to recall such information, you need the whole context in which the knowledge exists in your mind, because to retain knowledge requires retaining the context (since all knowledge is contextual and hierarchical). The most efficient, effective and hence only rational way to retain such a context is through essentials.
Important note 2:
Note that we have two interrelated reasons or needs for abstraction:
To elaborate further, thinking in broader abstractions, such as essentials, is valuable because of the following:
NOTE: If less focus needed to retain a context means more focus is available to hold more ideas at the same time, and thus, relate, infer and abstract from a wider context of knowledge.
Certainty, probability and possibility are only valid within the context of your knowledge.
Expansion:
To expand on the second point, to say something is possible is to make a definite statement by saying that the available facts suggest a potential truth. If there are no such facts, you cannot claim even possibility.
Moral judgement always and only applies to acts and results of volition.
Expansion:
(1) Moral judgement does not apply to nature as such, only to the volitional acts and results of a conscious, volitional being like a human. (2) Concepts like “good”, “bad”, “evil”, etc. when used with moral praise or condemnation cannot apply to nature as such, while they can and always do apply to the acts and results of volition. (3) The metaphysically given is to be accepted as a given, without blessings, denunciations, condemnations, curses, etc. It may be judged with respect to a purpose, but should not be judged in a manner suggesting moral agency. (4) The man-made is never to be accepted simply as a given, and must always be evaluated, no matter how lightly or heavily, with respect to a clear code of values and the right cognitive context.
Reality is the final arbiter of truth and the only source of value.
Expansion:
Expanding on the last point, a faked reality, i.e. the unreal treated as real, will not produce a value. Hence, we have the following:
Note that to not act outside one’s grasp of reality is not to avoid the unknown, but to face it according to your knowledge, which includes your grasp of the limits of your knowledge. Pursue your values according to what you know, and explore what you do not. If you cannot act with certainty but must act, approach it probabilistically (there are methods to apply reason to probabilistic contexts).
Consciousness perceives reality, and does not create it.
Expansion:
To achieve values in reality, act according to what you know and do not merely wish for reality to present your values for you. If you have wishes, then either (1) act according to your knowledge, if you think you can realise them, or (2) wait with patience, if you think you may be able to realise them later, or (3) accept reality with serenity, since reality is what it is despite your wishes. Note that to think you may be able to realise your wishes later, you must have rational expectations, wherein you have a clear basis for concluding (1) possibility, and (2) viability, considering alternative paths and values.
Notes:
The right effects require the right causes, and only the right causes lead to the right effects.
NOTE: This is an extension of the law of causality.
Expansion:
Never expect the unearned and the undeserved, neither in matter nor in spirit. Truth and value can only be derived from that which exists, and a faked reality, i.e. the unreal treated as real, will not produce truth or value.
Note that to never expect the unearned and the undeserved is not merely a principle to follow, but a principle that conveys the consequence of the fact of causality. Not only must you never expect the unearned and the undeserved, but also you cannot acquire the unearned and the undeserved except by accident or by someone else’s virtue. Note also that the concepts of earning and deserving do not apply for all values, only for values requiring conscious, volitional action to produce.
Purpose integrates the concerns and motivations pertaining to a standard of value.
Expansion:
Note that objectively, life is the standard of value. The standard establishes one’s hierarchy of values by identifying their relative importance in the pursuit of the standard. Now, life is sustained by self-initiated action that acts to sustain itself. In other words, life requires goal-oriented action, with life as an end in itself. The goals, which are based on the concerns and motivations pertaining to the sustenance of life, are integrated into one value: purpose.
To elaborate, values exist in a hierarchy based on the importance of each value in the sustenance of life, and the pursuit of values lead to purposes that integrate concerns and motivations at various levels of importance. To value is to practise the pursuit of value. A value is not merely a wish or desire but an object of a goal that you act to pursue.
Productive work is a rational human’s central purpose that integrates all his other values.
First, a definition…
Productive work:
The process by which a human is able to take the material available to him, either in nature or in the ideas and works of his own or others, and remake it in the image of his values, i.e. remake it as a concrete instance of his values (material or spiritual) that has more value to him than the material itself; if the result has less value than the material, then it is “destructive work”.
Expansion:
A human’s conceptual faculty enables him to grasp more fundamental attributes of the material he encounters. Such a grasp helps him understand the way the material would react to some conditions, and thus, understand if he can reshape the material into something of objectively greater value. Note that, like concepts, values are discovered from the perceptual level, and such concrete values are integrated with time and experience into more abstract, wide-ranging values.
Given this fact, we can understand that to pursue one’s life as an end in itself as a rational being, such transformative action is a human’s only means of survival long-range, since it is his only means of creating values that would enable him to extend his capacity to survive beyond the immediately given, i.e. beyond that of a savage or an animal. Hence, such action, which is productive work by definition, is the central purpose of one’s life that enables a human to create, i.e. produce values and not just acquire values as they exist in nature. Since productive work is the only means to achieve values in nature beyond the available—often concrete-bound—level (hence, the only means with respect to the moral standard and all that it entails), productive work is the purpose that integrates every other value with respect to the standard of value, i.e. life.
With life as the standard of value and living one’s life as the first purpose, reason follows purpose and purpose follows reason.
Rational application of focus and effort, both mental and physical, is based on your existing knowledge of what you know to be relevant to your values.
This principle is an extension of: 1.3.1. Your own knowledge of reality as your sole guide to truth
Expansion:
No concern nor motive should be arbitrary, and every bit of effort must be (1) rationally purposeful (i.e. action based on what you know to be relevant to your purpose) and (2) purposefully rational (i.e. thinking based on the known requirements of your purpose). This also applies to:
This is crucial because any consciousness is finite and thus cannot afford arbitrary mental baggage, neither in terms of mental units nor in terms of mental effort. In other words, to use mental units or mental effort that, in your knowledge, are purposeless (either irrelevant or arbitrary), is an irrational use of the mind.
Note:
Motives such as curiosity are not arbitrary but based on the pleasure of seeking knowledge. It is the pursuit of expanding your awareness of the world based on (1) the pleasure of engaging your mind, and (2) the pleasure of learning something that is in some way valuable (to consider, to think about, to talk about, to use, etc.). In the right context (discussed later), the pursuit of curiosity can be of great value to you.
For more on the value of curiosity, see: Exploration in Truth-Seeking from Epistemology.
Constraints of a situation shape the requirements of the context.
Expansion:
These constraints can be:
NOTE: Considering the “requirements of moral efficacy” refers to dealing with values as an integrated whole and not dealing with them in isolation and putting them in conflict with each other.
Given a logical hierarchy of contexts, it is efficacious to handle narrower contexts with narrower focus — which may require lesser effort in some respects.
Expansion:
The judgement of values involves not only the evaluation of the abstract values involved but also their relationship with other values in your context. Your context is decided by how broad or narrow your purpose is in a given situation. When considering life choices, your context is the broadest it can be. You must deal with narrower choices as secondary to the broader choices, but once you understand the relationship of the narrower and broader contexts involved, it is not efficacious to keep holding the broader context in mind when dealing with the narrower one. In other words, when you have handled the bigger picture enough to validate the place of a smaller concern within it, it is efficacious to deal with the smaller concern with a narrower focus.
This approach is analogous to solving a complex problem with many smaller parts. When solving a complex problem, say in mathematics, there may be smaller problems to handle before integrating it with the larger problem. We must handle these with narrower focus, putting aside the bigger picture for a while. Once it is done, we return to the bigger picture and decide our next move.
Note that this is an extension of the principle of rational application of focus and effort. To effectively engage with a context that is, in your knowledge, rational to engage with, requires full focus on what is relevant to the context (which often includes its connection to the broader context that validates it). To do otherwise is irrational by the very nature of the action.
An implication of the last point is that there are cases where reducing your focus and effort is rational, and not doing so is irrational. To elaborate on some specifics, there are cases where, within a certain context, acting on impulse and emotion is proper and rational. For example, when you engage with a momentary pleasure that is a conscious value, you must engage with it in the moment without any deliberations or other considerations. As another example, when you find your mind overloaded, it is rational and proper to reduce your mental activity and relax your thinking.
Important note 1:
Be conscientious with your hierarchy of contexts, and look before you narrow your focus. In other words, before narrowing your focus, evaluate (within the broader context) whether it is valid to do so or not. If it is valid, understand why, in what manner and what is necessary to carry forward from the broader context to the narrower context. Principles are vital means to this end.
Important note 2:
To handle concretes efficaciously requires thinking in essentials.
NOTE: More on this is discussed in the next principle.
Important note 3:
Be cognisant when encountering elements beyond one’s current context. When we identify something beyond the context we are operating in, we get the indication that we must broaden or shift our focus. By identifying, defining and retaining a context through essentials, we can effectively identify if something comes up that is outside the current context we were operating in, and we can identify whether and to what extent we must broaden or shift our focus.
To handle concretes efficaciously requires thinking in essentials.
Handle ⇒ Think and/or Act
NOTE: Relates strongly with the previous section.
Expansion:
Every bit of focus and effort in thought and action must be applied based only on what you know to be rational and purposeful in your context. It is constructive to note that here, unit-reduction by forming broad abstractions is vital in achieving intellectual, moral and practical efficacy. In particular, to efficaciously deal with concretes, it is necessary to (1) identify concrete instances of abstract values, (2) judge them based on the abstractions and (3) not delve deeper into the concretes themselves without reason or purpose relevant to the context.
The most effective method of unit-reduction is thinking in essentials. Note that what constitutes the essentials depends on the context, i.e. we must find what constitutes the primary or fundamental elements in the given context. Thinking in essentials is the indispensable method of defining and retaining a whole context.