Andrew Sternberg

(Bold Mine)Why would representational art not belong in the design, ornament, and decoration of buildings? If it doesn't, then why would Roark have hired Steven Mallory?

His goal was: to allow the ones who earned wealth to keep it by preventing those who didn't earn it from using the government to expropriate it from them. Ragnar was removing the means of expropriation, Galt was removing the means of production until there was nothing left to expropriate.

1) Your right, value-judgment is exactly the term I was looking for. But I still don't know what evaluation means. I don't know which types of mental identification it refers to and which types are excluded from it. By providing me the value-judgement term, you also reminded me that there are two general categories of identification: fact and value (x is true, x is good). Value-judgement covers half of this distinction, and you go on to name other sub-categories of value-judgements: moral-judgement being the most fudamental of these sub-categories, with esthetic, economic, intellectual, etc. (etc. since you imply others). Is there an already existing term for the other half, fact-judgements, or is that it? ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- 2) Ah. I think I understand. Since a person effects reality (including other people) through their actions, it is a man's action that one must make value-judgments of. There are different categories of value-judgments because there are different categories of action. What type of value-judgment one should properly employ in any given context depends on the perspective one is looking at it from. The proper perspective also depends on context. I agree with you that context is everything. Ok, but given a context in which it is proper to perform a certain type of value-judgment (esthetic, economic, moral), how do you perform that value-judgment validly? This is where judging a particular kind of action "against a particular kind of standard", comes into the equation. But in order to do this you need to know the principles characteristic of that standard, and you need to know the method for applying those principles. Given a context in which esthetic-judgment is proper, in order to determine something as esthetically good/bad, you need to know the standard for good and bad art, and then you need to know the method for applying that standard to the art-work being judged Given a context in which economic-judgment is proper, in order to determine something as economically good/bad, you need to know the standard for good and bad economic action, and then you need to know the method for applying that standard to the economic action being judged. Given a context in which moral-judgment is proper, in order to determine something as morally good/bad, you need to know the standard for good and bad moral action, and then you need to know the method for applying that standard to the moral action being judged. This last, moral-judgment, has been the primary focus of this thread. But there seem to have been two separate questions being discussed: 1) In what context is moral-judgment appropriate, and 2) given a context in which moral-judgment is appropriate, what is the valid method for applying the Objectivist ethics, as our standard, to the action being judged. Betsy seemed to be focusing primarily, but not exclusively on the first, and Brian, your questions seem to be focused primarily, but not exclusively, on the second. I think there is much more that could be said on both questions, and I am anxiously awaiting the answers. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 5) I need to give more thought to this part, your claim that I am speaking intrinsically (bad), rather then in contextual absolutes (good), and specifically more thought to whether or not I know what principles are. I think I need to re-'chew' the meaning of principles, and that may take some time. Once I have, I'll bring this point back up again in another thread. That is, if it is even necessary.

My grade school decided to skip grammar. I have managed to get by somehow, but I would be very enthusiastic about receiving help in this regard from those more knowledgable.

Can you respond to points 1, 2 and 5 in my most recent post. Your post was a illuminating elaboration other issues and these three questions still linger in my mind. Thanks.

When I say beneficial, I mean beneficial to man and for man's life. I don't think this would classify as intrinsicism. If I say, "being rational is beneficial to man", I am answering both parts of the question. I am saying it is beneficial to man and for his life. Substitue any particular man for the universal man: Being rational is beneficial to you, and for you life, just as it is beneficial for me and my life, just as it is beneficial to each and every other human being, and their lives.

A few more questions: 1) Is there some name for the type of judgment that simply establishes the relationship between some existential condition and one's life? Is what evaluation means? 2) Can you help me to essentialize the basis for distinguishing between the four types of judgments that you name? Let me start and you can tell me if I have going in the right direction. Judgment requires some standard in order to establish a spectrum on which 'good' is at one end and 'bad' at the other. If there are different categories of judgment, they have to get their identity from the differing standards they employ A carpenter's skill can be good, intellectually, according to some standard unique to intellectual judgment. A carpenter's policy can be good, economically, according to some standard unique to economic judgment. A carpenter's products can be good, esthetically, according to some standard unique to esthetic judgment. A carpenter can be good, morally, according to some standard unique to moral judgment. 3) I think you used the term ‘behavioral judgment’ in relation to judging a person on their actions alone. Where does this fit into your distinction (intellectual, economic, esthetic, moral)? I believe that you said something along the lines of: what you say and how you act are a window to who you are. Is “who you are” in this context synonymous with your ‘character’, i.e. how one stands in relation to objective moral principles. 4) Are the four types of judgment equal, hierarchically, or is one more fundamental than the rest? For example, someone’s moral value seems more fundamental than the other three. One becomes intellectually valuable by exercising the moral virtue of rationality, economically valuable through rationality with respect to production, and esthetically valuable through rationality with respect to creation art. 5) Is the following correct? We must first understand WHAT moral judgment is before we can answer HOW to employ it. Moral judgment of oneself or others consists of determining their relationship to already established objective moral principles. If you can establish that a man is in a favorable relationship to those principles you can conclude that he is beneficial to man on principle. To be beneficial to man means to be beneficial to all men. If you can establish that a man is in an unfavorable relationship to those moral principles you can conclude that he is harmful to man on principle. To be harmful to man means to be harmful to all men.

Does "moral judgement" have two different, yet valid meanins? I am thinking specifically of the following two: 1) Judging a person's actions in terms of how they benift or harm your own life. 2) Judging a person's actions in terms of how they adhere to moral principles, virtues and vices, that you have established to be beneficial to man on principle. If the above distinction is valid, has there perhaps been some equivication between these two meanings? From the example that Betsy provides, if a person fails to complete an assigned task, then you have enough information to judge morally according to the first sense, i.e. that their action is harmful to your own purposes. However, at this level of inquiry, going on only this one action, you do not yet have enough information to proclaim moral judgement in the second sense, i.e. to proclaim that the person is action harmfully to you because they are characteristically lazy or (exhibiting some other vice). The first type of judgement, "behavioral", is a neccecary methodological step in the second type of judgment, the morality of the other person. And while the first type of judgement is neccescary it is not sufficient to attribute vice, i.e. conscious evasion or its derivatives, i.e. an unwillingness to act virtuously, rather than an inablity to act virtuously (an inability caused by errors of knowledge or psychological impairment).

I share a wall with Mr. TetrisGod. Lucky me. Happy Birthday Derek.

I will be there with my roomate and brother. It also happens to be the weekend of my birthday (21). It is a great way to celebrate two of the most important people in my life.

Burgess, Would you agree that 'essential characteristic' is synonomous with 'attribute'?

In short, I thought this movie (and Vol 2) were enormously fun, yet not enormously important. I gave it a 7.

Questioning me is intrinsically evil.

Pictures are intrinsically evil.

My understanding is that "The Little Street" was not a short story, but rather a a novel that Ayn Rand planned to write, but never did.