u/coppockm56

Just some food for thought: Ayn Rand developed the Objectivist epistemology in part via introspection, which she engaged in while under the influence of amphetamines, a mind-altering substance. That included Dexamyl, which combined dextroamphetamine, a central nervous system stimulant, with amobarbital, a barbiturate sedative.

The biographical record shows that Ayn Rand received extensive help from both her immediate family in getting to America and from her extended family once she arrived here. And yet, in “About the Author” at the end of Atlas Shrugged, she wrote this:

“I decided to be a writer at the age of nine, and everything I have done was integrated to that purpose. I am an American by choice and conviction. I was born in Europe, but I came to America because this was the country based on my moral premises and the only country where one could be fully free to write. I came here alone, after graduating from a European college. I had a difficult struggle, earning my living at odd jobs, until I could make a financial success of my writing. No one helped me, nor did I think at any time that it was anyone’s duty to help me.”

RAND, AYN. Atlas Shrugged (Function). Kindle Edition. [Emphasis added.]

Are you an open Objectivist or closed Objectivist?

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Is anarchism compatible with Ayn Rand’s philosophy of Objectivism?

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So, I got in a debate here about whether Rand refuted Hume's is/ought gap. I didn't fully answer the debate (my position is that she did not), so I thought I'd provide a little thought experiment to better describe my argument. I believe it's the standard argument, although it's my own derivation (and AI was not used in writing it, FYI). Fair warning: this is long. But give it a read if you want to understand a little more about Hume's position versus Rand's.

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Let’s posit a 40-year-old man who’s married to a 37-year-old woman and has two kids, one a freshman in high school and one in 7th grade. All of them are in good health. He also has an uncle who helped raise him, who suffered from a rare form of aggressive cancer (now in remission) that he battled for years, leaving him deep in debt, homeless, and unable to work.

The man has a good job that he likes and that pays a good salary, and his wife is also employed in a job that she tolerates but that also pays fairly well. They’re comfortable financially, firmly in the upper middle class. They have a mortgage on a nice house that’s large enough for their family, but not extravagant. They own two mid-level cars that they like and are functional for their family. They have good health insurance through the man’s job. They are able to save moderately toward a good public college for their children and a comfortable, but not extravagant, retirement. They have some discretionary income left over for a vacation every year and other small luxuries.

Unexpectedly, the man inherits $1 million from a relative he hadn’t kept up with and didn’t know very well. It’s a windfall.

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Those are the facts. From these facts alone (the “is” in the is/ought gap), tell me how the man ought to spend the money. If Hume was wrong and Rand was right, he should be able to use reason (apply logic to the facts) and come up with the one and only correct decision on what to do with the $1 million. He should have to consider nothing other than these facts in identifying the correct choice.

Before you answer, consider a few of the options that are open to him:

1. Invest the money in a conservative portfolio that will return around 5% a year in interest. The money will then be available for any unforeseen circumstances.
2. Buy a new home with more space and various amenities that each member of the family will enjoy. For example, the man could have a home theater, the wife a workout room, and the kids larger rooms and a larger yard.
3. Put the money in a more aggressive retirement account so that both the man and his wife can enjoy a more comfortable retirement, earlier, with more options for travel, etc.
4. Put the money aside to pay for a private college education for both children, and leave some money to help them get started after they graduate.
5. The man’s wife always wanted to be a lawyer. Use the money to fund law school, and then to set her up in private practice. Given her chosen field of law, it will take 10 years, at least, for her income to make up for the money invested. In the meantime, the family will have less income, and some or all of the difference will also need to be drawn from the inheritance.
6. Use the money to pay off the uncle’s medical bills and other debts, and then to help him find a place to live and get the ongoing assistance he needs to become functional again.
7. The man has always wanted a sports car and a sailboat. Use the money to buy both, and save some money for ongoing maintenance.

Now, with those options in mind and given only those facts, tell me how the man ought to spend the money. Again, if Hume was wrong and Rand was right, he should be able to use reason to determine the one and only correct choice. (Meanwhile, you can probably think of many other options, including a combination of some or all of these and other options.)

But again, before you answer, consider potential lines of reasoning for each choice:

1. It would be prudent to set the money aside and let it grow. Nobody knows the future, and the money would help the family weather any potential challenges.
2. All members of the immediate family should benefit equally. A new house would accomplish exactly that. And, while the uncle’s situation is very sad, he’s not as important as the immediate family members.
3. The man and his wife work hard. They should be able to enjoy their retirement when they’re older, and to retire earlier. (Ditto with the uncle.)
4. The future success of the man’s children is very important to him and his wife, and as parents, they feel responsible for ensuring that they have the best possible start in life. (Ditto with the uncle.)
5. The man’s wife is very important to him. She has always worked hard, both to help support the family and to raise the children. She deserves the chance to become the lawyer she always wanted to be. (Ditto with the uncle.)
6. The man’s uncle has always been important to him. And, the man and his family are doing fine, with comfortable and happy lives. The uncle deserves help in getting out of his extremely miserable existence.
7. The man has worked hard his entire life, and he's done a good job supporting his family. He deserves to have these things that he’s always wanted, while he’s still young enough to enjoy them.

Which of these lines of reasoning is the correct one? How would you justify a claim that one or another is most correct?

In fact, it’s easy enough to see that it’s impossible to identify what the man ought to do from the facts alone. He can’t merely “use reason” to make the choice. 

Too many other factors come into play, such as where the man, his wife, his children, his immediate family as a group, and his uncle fall in his hierarchy of values (and how does "reason" answer this question?). He has to consider his own interests, his wife’s, his children’s, and his uncle’s, and weigh them somehow as to which impact is more important (again, how does "reason" answer this question?). He has to project into the future and decide which choice is the best as weighed against all of the possibilities. And that's just scratching the surface of all the factors, outside of just the facts, that impact the question of what he ought to do.

You can probably think of other options, and other lines of reasoning. How can you say that any given line of reasoning results in the “correct” choice? How would you even define what a “correct” choice looks like? And if "reason" were sufficient, then every person in the same situation with the same facts would make the same decision. Would they?

And then, importantly, consider this in purely ethical terms. Which of these choices is the moral choice? Can you determine the moral choice based on the facts alone? How would you justify saying that one choice is more ethical than the others, based on just the facts? Is there some specific standard of value that the man must apply in making his decision, per reason? Is "man's life" or "man qua man" sufficient? Would it be the same choice for every person, or would it vary? Again, this is just scratching the surface.

Isn’t it true that any of these choices could be considered ethical? Is there really any way, based on "reason," to say which choice is morally superior and is thus the one and only morally-correct choice?

Rand thought she answered the is/ought gap with this, essentially: “Man is a rational animal, and thus he ought to use reason.” But that’s only because she didn’t understand what Hume was saying. He didn’t dispute that man should use reason, he only said that reason, alone, isn’t sufficient to tell a person what they ought to do, based on just the facts.

I've reported this multiple times, and I'll report it again. I'm just wondering, though: is anyone else having problems with Apple Mail synching Outlook accounts? I use a few Macs, and they all have issues that started with Beta 1. It's really the only significant issue I've run across.

And they're not consistent, either, although. Some are stuck copying messages, some don't delete messages that are deleted on other device, etc. My iPhone and my iPad are both running the beta, so it seems like it's just a MacOS thing.

On the previous betas, only one of my Macs could sync my Outlook account in Apple Mail. Now, they all can. That was my only significant issue.

Apple Mail on my two MacBook Airs currently won't sync correctly with my Outlook account (running against Office 365 Exchange), while it works fine on my Mac Studio. Google and iCloud mail work fine. Anyone else having this issue?

I've tried all the fixes I could find, but they're still struggling.

This one was pretty simple, but I thought it was actually kind of cool. 

I have an eye doctor's appointment today, so just for kicks I said "Siri, make sure I leave on time for my appointment this afternoon." It came back with "I set a reminder to leave for your eye appointment at 1:50pm, it will take you about 25 minutes to get there." So it looked at my calendar, noted the appointment, saw the doctor's name, looked up the location and estimated the travel time, then created a relevant reminder. 

The old Siri couldn't have done that.

When doing the circle a part of an image thing on a screenshot, I’m getting a “Google is unavailable” error. Any ideas why?

So, I believe all of my settings are correct, but new Siri isn't responding to the voice prompt "Siri" on my iPhone 15 Pro Max. The old Siri responded correctly. Any ideas?