From: "Phil Roberts, Jr." 




Owleye wrote:
> 
> "Phil Roberts, Jr." wrote:
> 
> 
> So that I can make sure I understand the various relationships you 
> are speaking of let me make the following statements asking whether they 
> are consistent or not with your theory?
> 
> Being rational is not the same thing as being good.
> 

'Being rational' is not a matter of 'being efficient' (means/end theory) or of 
'maximizing self-interest' (egoism), but simply a matter of 'being able to "see"
what is going on'.  This seeing comes in three basic flavors:

  1. Epistemic "seeing" (juxtaposed to 'being stupid or ignorant')
  2. Valuative "seeing" (juxtaposed to 'being evil or immoral')
  3. Strategic "seeing" (juxtaposed to 'being incompentent or inefficacious')

Kant see's 1 and 3 as the basics of rationality, he sees it as either a matter of
cognition/truth/etc. or amatter of doing.  I see 1 and 2 as more basic and fundamental,
with a stratetic rationality being a derivative.  IOW, for me 'being rational' is 
not about 'doing', but about 'seeing', including the sort of 'seeing' which we 
associate with valuative impartiality/objectivity.

Strategic fixation always requires that we focus on a part of the whole of the
epistemic background, and as such causes us to "see" less by fixating our
attention on only one small part of the whole.  I know.  I know.  I'm rambling.
:)


> Being emotional is not the same thing as being good.  (Subject to it being 
> akin to refined beauty -- a la Hume or Bentham or Mill)
> 

Emotion causes us to fixate on a part of the whole, and as such restricts
our "seeing".  However, ego-related emotional NEED and DISORDER are the
result of our no longer being sufficiently fixated on the self and its
needs.  Another way of saying this is that, in nature's most rational
species, we see two sides of the same valuative objectivity coin that is
not present in other species, 1. an increase in other-interestedness (non-
self-serving concern for other) and 2. a decrease in self-interestedness 
(increased volatility in self-worth/self-interest, etc.).  In other words,
the valuative profile of the species is "red-shifted" away from the 
"ruthless selfishness" predicted by the best and brightest we have working
in the field of natural selection.  My theory accepts the "ruthless selfisness"
prediction as a given, and then simply tries to "explain" the red-shift in
terms of a MALADAPTIVE psychodynamic mechanism, one in which an increase in
knowledge (epistemic objectivity) begins to produce an objectifying influence
on our values.  IOW, nature is INADVERTENTLY manufacturing goodness and
emotional instablity as maladaptive by-produts of the evolution of rationality
at a faster rate than she can eliminate them (e.g., throttleing every self-
incinerating Buddhist monk she can lay her hands on).
  
 
> Being natural does not include being rational.
>

It includes it, but with the exception of man and perhaps his phylogenic
relatives, nature is blind, mechanical and arational.  As such, it is foolish
to suppose that the end nature has designed us to acheive (DNA replication
via the vehicle of self-interest) is itself rational, simply because rationality
has been enlisted to achieve that end.  
 
> Being rational involves some sort of  (yet to be fully explained) "seeing."
> 

Three types, as a matter of fact (probably more, such as aesthetic seeing,
humouric seeing, etc.), epistemic "seeing", valuative "seeing" and 
strategic "seeing", as I explained above.

> Being good means being (yet to be understood) "valuatively objective" and is 
> capable of being "seen."
> 

'Being good' is just another way of talking about 'being valuatively objective/
impartial'.  'Love your neighbor as your love yourself' is another way of
saying it.  It is the RESULT of "seeing" epistemically, a little too much
for one's own good, in that one begins to "see" one's own wants and needs 
as the picky uny things that they are (volatility in self-interest) and one
begins to PROJECT one's self into the sentience of others, thereby extending
one's one wants and needs beyond one's self to others.  Then too, there is
the sense of "seeing" that we associate with the notion of 'objectivity'.
We assume that 'being objective' is getting outside our skin at and getting
more at the way things really are, not only epistemically (knowledge), but
valuatively as well (selecting non-kin for O.J.s trial who will be more 
likely to "see" O.J.s good and evil for what it is).



-- 

                  Phil Roberts, Jr.

       The Psychodynamics of Genetic Indeterminism:
Why We Turned Out Like Captain Kirk Instead of Mr. Spock
     http://www.fortunecity.com/victorian/dada/90/