From: Owleye 




"Phil Roberts, Jr." wrote:

>
> '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')

How is seeing related to having the ability to think logically, to understand complex
issues, to know vast quantities of information?

>
>   2. Valuative "seeing" (juxtaposed to 'being evil or immoral')

How is seeing related to maturity?

>
>   3. Strategic "seeing" (juxtaposed to 'being incompentent or inefficacious')

How is seeing related to know-how?

>
>
> 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.

I'd disagree with your interpretation of Kant, but if you are relying on our ability to
see things I'd be interested in knowing how we can distinguish between someone who does
and someone who doesn't?  What is the difference between being smart and being stupid?  (I
hope you don't beg the question by responding that its the ability to see better.)

In any case, I'm left with a confusion about whether or not being rational is or isn't the
same thing as being good?

> > 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).

I take it you think emotion and rationality are opposing forces.  I am still left
uncertain, as I was to the first posit, about my question.

>
>
>
> > 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.

This is rather confusing.  Are you affirming or denying it?

> > 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).
>

What tells me whether I have seen too much for my own good?

owleye